IN   THE    FIRE    OF   THE    HEART 


IN    THE    FIRE    OF 
THE    HEART 


BY 
RALPH    WALDO    TRINE 

Author  of 

In  Tune  with  the  Infinite,  What  All  the  World's 

a-Seeking,  Character-Building 

Thought  Power,  etc. 


NEW  YORK 

McCLURE,   PHILLIPS  <£•  CO. 

MCMVI 


Copyright,  1906,  by 
McCLURE,  PHILLIPS  &   CO. 


PREFACE 

This  little  volume  deals  with  certain  facts  and  forces  in 
connection  with  both  our  individual  lives  and  our  common 
social  life.  It  deals  with  the  latter  first.  It  will  have 
principally  three  types  of  readers.  The  first,  that  large 
class  of  open  and  fair-minded  people  who  love  justice  and 
honour,  who  believe  in  the  great  principle  of  equal  oppor- 
tunities for  all  and  special  privileges  for  none,  who  believe 
that  one  great  class  of  people  are  not  to  be  used  simply  as 
a  grist  for  another  class,  who  believe  that  there  is  nothing 
just,  or  wise,  or  safe,  much  less  common-sense,  in  per- 
mitting a  social  and  political  state  where  there  are  little 
groups  of  men  and  families  grown  so  enormously  rich 
and  powerful  that  their  very  riches  and  privileges  and 
excesses  become  a  menace  to  their  own  welfare,  as  well  as 
to  that  of  the  people  at  large  and  to  the  very  State  itself. 

The  second,  tliat  class,  perhaps  comparatively  small, 
possibly  already  much  larger  than  we  realize,  whose  mem- 
bers have  been  so  long  schooled  in  privilege  on  their  own 
part,  or  from  their  ancestors,  or  from  their  associations, 
that  they  come  actually  to  believe  that  they  in  some  way 
are  better  than  the  rest  of  the  people,  that  somehow  it  was, 
or  is  intended,  that  they  be  sort  of  custodians  of  the  welfare 

v 


vi  Preface 

of  oilier  and  less  favoured  people,  and  that  they  become 
dispensers  of  bounty  to  them  in  the  degree  that  it  will  not 
affect  their  own  accumxdations,  or  ease  and  proprietary 
standing.  By  them  the  book  will  be  strongly  criticised,  but 
their  criticisms  will  be  honest,  the  same  as  their  pre- 
judices are  honest. 

The  third  will  be  the  class  —  though  the  readers  of  the 
book  from  this  class  will  be  very  small  —  who  by  fair 
means  and  fold,  chiefly  foul,  and  dishonest,  and  devilish, 
manipulate  to  get  the  great  natural  properties  that  should 
be  owned  by  and  administered  for  the  welfare  of  all  the 
people  into  their  own  hands  for  their  own  personal  and 
excessive  enrichment,  who  debauch  and  poison  as  they  go, 
who  are  criminals  in  practice  and  many  at  heart,  though 
eminently  "respectable"  and  smooth  and  suave  and 
plausible  in  their  methods,  and  ivho  strike  out  vigorously 
and  viciously  at  everything  that  would  present  truthfully 
and  impartially  the  forces  that  are  at  work  in  our  social 
state,  and  that  would  seem  to  disturb  or  menace  or  curtail 
their  privileges  and  their  methods;  who  own  a  portion 
of  the  public  press  for  the  direct  and  deliberate  promotion 
of  their  ends,  or  who  in  one  form  or  another  influence  or 
control  sufficiently  some  other  portions  —  though  not  all 
by  any  means  —  as  to  have  it  belittle  and  belie  any  and 
all  attempts  to  present  true  conditions  and  feasible  remedies 
to  the  people.  The  book  will  be  criticised  by  them,  con- 
demned even  as  being  something  given  to  exaggerating 
sonditions  or  dangerous  to  the  social  order  —  there  are 
numbers  of  expressions  and  forms  that  form  sort  of 


Preface  vii 

stock  phrases  that  are  always  ready  and  at  pens  point 
for  this  purpose.  The  major  portions  of  the  criticisms 
and  statements  from  those  of  this  class  will  be  falsehoods  — 
deliberate  and  vicious  —  and  the  interesting  part  of  it  is 
that  they  know  they  are  such,  even  while  they  are  uttering 
them. 

It  perchance  may  not  be  unwise  or  amiss  to  say  that 
those  of  the  class  first  mentioned,  as  well  as  that  portion 
of  the  public  press  that  is  not  owned  or  controlled,  or 
whose  policies  are  not  shaped  by,  or  their  cues  taken  from, 
the  forces  of  greed  and  privilege  and  public  debauchery, 
but  that  stand  true  to  the  higher  manhood  and  for  the 
higher  public  welfare,  while  they  will  agree  with  and 
sanction  the  general  purpose  of  the  little  book,  will  not 
agree  with  the  author  in  all  particulars.  Nor  is  such 
to  be  expected. 

Again,  it  may  not  be  amiss  to  say  by  way  of  foreword, 
that  on  the  part  of  those  or  rather  many,  in  the  Academic 
world,  the  little  book  will  not  be  accepted,  on  the  ground 
of  its  being  not  "scientific,"  or  "scholarly"  {or  orthodox  ?) 
but  "popular."  The  author  wishes  to  acknowledge  at  once 
this  criticism,  and  to  state  most  frankly  that  he  has  not 
aimed  to  make  it  academic,  or  technical,  or  orthodox, 
but  that  he  has  deliberately  aimed  to  make  it  a  simple, 
concrete  little  volume  along  the  lines  with  which  it  deals, 
"popular,"  in  the  sense  of  its  being  for  that  splendid 
great  "common  people"  that  has  made  this,  as  well  as 
every  nation  of  importance  and  power  in  the  world's 
history,  and  upon  whose  welfare  all  depends;  and  who, 


viii  Preface 

moreover,  are  now  getting  such  awakenings,  as  well  as 
facts  and  forces  into  their  possession,  as  will  yet  save 
and  redeem  the  nation,  and  with  it  their  own  great 
common  interests. 


Sunnybrae  Farm 
Croton  Landing,  N.  Y. 
November  1,  1906 


College  professors  moan  because  no  one  reads  their  bloodless  and 
wordy  books  on  economics,  but  economics  when  dealt  with  straight 
from  the  shoulder  by  men  who  know  the  facts  is  to-day  more  popular 
than  the  most  popular  fiction,  more  interesting  than  the  most  inter- 
esting travels,  better  selling  than  any  other  form  of  literature.  This 
is  significant.  The  American  people  are  gathering  facts  for  future 
action.  They  want  to  be  absolutely  sure  before  they  act,  and  then, 
get  from  under.  —  From  a  Current  Exchange. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  With  the  People  :    A  Revelation             3 

II.  The  Conditions  that  Hold  among  Us     16 

III.  As  Time   Deals  with  Nations                    83 

IV.  As  to  Government                                       92 

V.  A  Great  People's  Movement                   100 

VI.  Public  Utilities  for  the  Public  Good  117 

VII.  Labour  and  Its  Uniting  Power              188 

VIII.     Agencies  Whereby  We  Shall  Secure 

the   People's    Greatest    Good      235 

IX.     The  Great  Nation  289 

X.     The  Life  of  the  Higher  Beauty  and 

Power  316 


IN    THE    FIRE    OF   THE    HEART 


I 

WITH  THE  PEOPLE:  A  REVELATION 

i\  DREAM,  or  a  vision,  or  fancy,  I  know  not;  but  it 
seemed  to  be  amid  surroundings  unknown  before  and 
yet  it  seemed  very  like  this  world.  But  there  was  a 
difference  —  to  travel  one  had  in  thought  but  to  see 
one's  self  in  a  desired  locality,  or  in  the  presence  of  the 
desired  person,  and  he  was  there. 

It  seemed  to  be  where  one  could  look  for  a  long  dis- 
tance, yet  it  was  not  a  hill,  and  men  and  women  were 
coming  and  going.  It  seemed  to  be  neither  day  nor  night, 
for  one  could  discern  no  sun  nor  moon,  neither  were 
there  stars,  and  yet  it  was  light. 

And  I  heard  heavy  trampings  as  of  men  clad  in 
coarse  nailed  boots.  I  looked  and  presently  I  beheld  the 
form  of  a  man,  but  bent,  and  he  looked  closely  to  the 
ground  before  him  as  he  walked.  Though  he  seemed 
tired,  weary,  and  as  if  he  would  be  glad  to  lie  down  and 
sleep  for  a  thousand  years,  yet  he  seemed  to  be  hurrying 
along  as  if  he  might  be  late  to  something.  In  his  hand  he 
carried  a  pail. 

And  as  I  looked  I  saw  others,  and  still  others.  Some 
were  coming,  some  were  going.  All  seemed  encased  in  the 
same  coarse  garments,  many  were  weary,  and  all  seemed 
bent  toward  the  ground  and  all  were  hurrying  along. 

[3] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

And  as  I  wondered  pityingly  —  for  pity  seemed  to 
pervade  all  things  then  —  there  appeared  before  me  one 
who  seemed  to  come  to  satisfy  my  questionings.  He 
was  not  one  of  those  I  was  looking  upon,  although  it 
seemed  as  if  at  one  time  he  might  have  been.  His  face 
was  as  if  at  sometime  he  had  known  great  suffering, 
but  there  was  now  a  look  of  strength  and  compassion, 
there  was  such  beauty  in  his  face  that  I  wondered  at  it 
all.  Moreover  he  seemed  to  know  all  things  and  my 
thoughts  as  quickly  as  I  knew  them  myself.  I  was  about 
to  make  inquiry  of  him  when  he  approached  nearer 
and  said:  "These  are  of  a  company  numbering  many 
millions  upon  the  earth  who  do  its  heaviest  and  most 
important  work.  Were  they  not  to  go  to  their  work  daily 
the  industries  of  the  world  would  stop,  and  great  suffering 
and  privation  would  result."  Why  do  they  seem  so  eager 
I  thought,  and  why  are  they  bent  so  to  the  ground? 

''Their  work  is  heavy.  Their  hours  are  long.  They 
have  but  little  time  with  their  families,  for  they  must 
work  diligently  and  faithfully  while  work  lasts,  for 
later  on  work  stops  and  for  some,  for  weeks,  and  for 
some,  for  months,  there  is  no  work,  and  their  pay  were 
they  to  work  every  day  in  the  year  is  not  enough  to  keep 
them  in  comfort." 

But  why  I  thought,  and  I  contemplated  the  vast 
millions  made  from  industry  even  in  my  country  every 
year,  is  their  pay  so  small  ? 

He  smiled;  it  seemed  to  be  a  pitying  smile,  but  he 
did  not  answer  my  thought,  and  I  knew  not  at  the  time 
why  he  smiled  and  said  nothing. 

[4] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

While  I  was  meditating  upon  all  this  I  heard  a  great 
commotion  as  if  outside  of  great  gates,  and  I  heard 
voices  and  the  cries  of  excited  men  by  the  score.  My 
companion  said,  "  These  are  men  out  of  work.  A  few 
are  to  be  taken  to-day,  though  it  will  be  scarcely  one 
from  a  score,  and  the  others  will  tramp  on  as  they  have 
for  many  weary  days  to  other  works." 

Scarcely  had  the  noise  subsided  and  the  eager 
multitude  of  men  gone  on  its  way  when  I  heard  excited 
and  angry  shouts.  I  looked  and  beheld  a  man  not  yet 
in  the  prime  of  life.  His  face  was  haggard  and  white 
and  as  he  ran  he  was  followed  by  a  crowd  of  shouting 
and  excited  men  and  boys.  I  heard  a  dull  sound  and 
then  I  saw  a  stone  fall  to  the  ground  and  one  corner  of  it 
was  wet  and  very  red.  I  saw  the  man  stagger  and  fall 
forward,  and  from  the  back  of  his  head  blood  flowed. 
A  woman  rushed  from  the  crowd.  "  It's  John,  I  feared 
the  look  in  his  eyes  this  morning."  She  kissed  the  white 
face  and  with  her  lower  skirt  wiped  the  bruised  and 
bleeding  head.  And  the  child  she  carried  in  her  arms 
looked  on  in  wonder. 

Then  I  heard  the  clang  of  a  gong  and  horses 
hoofs  striking  the  hard  pavement,  and  as  the  rapidly 
gathering  crowd  separated  I  noticed  that  the  man's 
form  was  very  thin.  My  companion  said:  "  Long  out  of 
work  and  with  hungry  mouths  to  haunt  him,  he  has 
stolen  bread.  It's  common.' 

And  I  saw  —  I  knew  not  whence  they  came  or 
whither  they  went  —  a  large  company  that  seemed  to  be 
neither  men  nor  women  for  they  were  not  grown,  nor 

[5] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

were  they  erect.  They  did  not  seem  to  be  children,  for 
they  had  neither  children's  faces  nor  movements. 
"These  were  children,"  said  my  companion,  "put  to  work 
before  their  time.  Some  are  old  and  broken  now,  and 
though  still  young,  are  scarcely  able  to  keep  up  in  the 
race,  and  from  them  a  brood  still  worse  will  come." 
But  there  are  not  so  many,  I  ventured.  "In  your  country 
alone  there  are  at  this  moment  nearly  two  million." 
God,  Heaven  and  Hell,  I  cried,  if  — 

"Wait,"  he  said,  and  before  he  had  spoken  his  thought 
I  heard  a  commotion  as  of  doors  breaking  open,  and 
under  lurid  lights  and  amid  strains  of  coarse  quick 
music  I  saw  bedraggled  and  flushed  faced  and  harsh 
voiced  women  that  were  pushing  and  pulling  one  another, 
and  when  one  fell  others  seemed  even  with  vile  words 
to  kick  and  beat  her.  With  a  sense  of  horror,  I  thought, 
What  is  this  ? 

"This  is  a  low  dance  hall.  They  are  fighting  for  a 
brute  of  a  man."  I  heard  the  same  music  and  the  same 
noise  and  revel  from  other  places.  I  looked  and  saw 
place  after  place  of  the  same  type.  So  many,  I  said, 
and  how  came  they  here  ?  "In  this  section  are  over  a 
thousand  to-night  and  there  will  be  to-morrow;  the 
ranks  are  always  full.  They  start  in  different  ways  and 
from  many  different  places."  I  looked  at  a  group  with 
whom  were  still  traces  of  refinement.  The  faces  were 
some  marred,  but  the  hair  of  some  had  great  beauty 
in  its  colour.  "These,"  he  said,  "were  employed  in  large 
and  well-known  stores  and  establishments  at  wages  so 
small  that  when  food  was  gotten,  all  was  gone.  They 

[6] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
struggled  for  a  while,  many  bravely,  but  they  grew 
weary  when  they  could  make  no  headway,  for  the 
grace,  the  attraction,  the  fire  and  the  dreams  of  youth 
were  with  them.  Men  were  ready  to  give  them  money. 
For  a  while  they  found  the  way  less  hard  and  dreary. 
They  never  dreamed  of  these  places;  but  all  find  their 
way  here  in  time."  All?  I  said.  "Sometimes  a  rough 
black  wagon  carries  a  rudely  stained  box  out  through  a 
long  street  and  through  a  gateway  edged  with  drooping 
trees,  and  some  are  spared  these  resorts."  Then  I 
became  conscious  again  of  the  sights  and  ounds  about 
me. 

So  horrible  it  all  seemed,  that  I  said,  cursed  be  greed 
and  those  that  —  "Lightly,"  he  said,  "a  wealthy  owner 
of  one  of  the  large  establishments  in  which  some  of 
these  were  at  one  time  employed,  has  built  a  most 
beautiful  chapel  in  one  of  our  large  churches  and  has 
just  had  it  dedicated  to  Christ.  In  all  charity  he  is  most 
liberal."  I  sat  musing  but  I  could  not  comprehend.  Then 
anger  seemed  to  vie  with  reason,  when  I  was  brought 
again  to  myself  by  the  sound  of  horse's  hoofs  hurrying 
by.  They  drew  a  strange  looking  wagon.  It  was  followed 
by  two  rattling  carriages  that  were  drawn  by  poorer 
looking  horses.  In  the  first  was  a  gentle  looking  woman 
and  with  her  were  three  children.  In  the  second  were 
women  who  looked  something  like  those  that  were  in  the 
places  about  us,  but  they  seemed  to  be  of  a  more  gentle 
type.  "I  said,"  volunteered  my  companion,  "that  some- 
times a  rudely  stained  box  is  carried  out  through  a  long 
street,  and  some  are  spared  these  resorts.  She  was  so 

[7] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

gentle  and  beautiful  and  was  filled  with  such  compassion 
and  kindness.  So  young,  only  in  the  early  twenties.  The 
care  of  the  family  fell  largely  upon  her,  but  she  was 
never  strong  and  by  and  by  she  fell  weary.  Then  kind 
gentlemen  helped  her,  though  they  received  more  than 
they  gave.  She  went  away  for  a  time,  but  her  help  never 
failed  to  reach  the  little  home.  By  and  by  she  returned, 
but  all  hands  were  raised  against  her,  and  her  fine  sensi- 
tive spirit  could  not  stand  before  it.  Again  she  went 
away  and  soon  the  White  Plague  came  to  be  her  com- 
panion, but  it  did  not  stay  with  her  long.  She  seemed 
not  to  care,  nor  had  she  any  fear.  From  her  savings 
a  letter  carried  each  fortnight  the  same  old  help  to  the 
little  home,  until  two  days  ago,  from  a  public  institution, 
where  even  with  a  sad  and  sweet  smile  she  left  it,  her 
body  with  a  little  envelope  enough  to  bury  it,  was  sent 
back  to  her  mother's  home."  And  as  I  thought  of  her 
bravery,  her  goodness,  and  her  youth,  then  "All  hands 
were  raised  against  her"  rang  in  my  ears  and  anger 
seemed  to  seize  me.  "It  is  the  way  of  the  world,"  he  said, 
*'but  few  are  wise  enough  or  themselves  stainless  enough 
to  unders  and.'  But  we  all  have  our  failings  and  none 
are  perfect,  I  volunteered.  I  wept  and  found  relief,  then 
involuntarily  I  cried,  Jesus  and  Mary  Magdalene. 
"Jesus  was  wise  and  full  of  compassion,  and  more, 
his  own  life  was  without  error." 

And  as  I  pondered  and  repeated  to  myself  his  words, 
my  companion  seemed  to  be  forgetful  of  my  presence 
and  stood  looking  out  into  the  space  before  us,  while  a 
strange  expression  covered  his  face.  I  looked  at  him  but 

[8] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

said  nothing.  Presently  and  without  any  other  move- 
ment, even  of  the  head,  he  placed  his  hand  upon  my 
forehead  and  said,  "yonder!"  My  surroundings  seemed 
changed  and  it  was  not  as  on  the  earth.  I  looked  and 
beheld  a  company  in  very  white  garments  and  in  their 
midst  was  one  who  seemed  as  if  she  had  come  a  long 
distance,  for  she  walked  as  if  weary,  and  as  she  turned 
her  face  I  saw  that  it  was  sad,  and  yet  not  sad,  for  joy 
was  in  it. 

And  two  were  leading  her  by  the  hand  and  they 
went  along  a  path  that  was  very  bright  and  that 
became  brighter  as  they  went.  And  there  walked  beside 
them  one  whose  form  was  not  that  of  a  woman  and 
He  was  clothed  with  a  greater  light.  I  wondered  upon  it 
all  and  when  I  perceived  again  I  saw  that  some  were 
seated  and  others  were  reclining  as  on  a  bank.  Then 
He  whose  form  was  not  that  of  a  woman  bent  over 
and  kissed  the  forehead  of  the  one;  and  I  saw  Him  no 
more. 

Looking  again  I  could  no  longer  distinguish  from 
the  others  the  one  that  had  been  led.  And  I  thought 
—  she  must  be  rested  now.  And  immediately  they 
seemed  to  be  joined  by  hosts  of  others,  and  among  them 
were  little  children  and  young  men  and  maidens,  but 
I  saw  no  aged  there.  I  must  have  slept,  for  when  I  re- 
called my  surroundings  my  companion  was  taking 
his  hand  from  my  forehead  and  as  he  did  so  I  heard 
him  say,  "They  are  returning."  I  looked  and  saw  the 
strange  looking  wagon  and  the  two  rattling  carriages 
as  they  retraced  their  course  along  the  road.  "And  her 

[9] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

mother  never  knew  it,"  said  my  companion.  "And  may 
she  not  until  she  is  welcomed  and  cared  for  by  the  one 
who  was  welcomed  and  cared  for  to-day,  and  then  to 
know  will  not  hurt  her."  I  am  grateful  for  this  revelation, 
I  said.  Would  that  all  could  have  witnessed  it.  "All," 
he  replied,  "who,  imperfect  themselves  are  prone  to 
judge  or  condemn  another.  Henceforth  you  shall  be  a 
better  man."  Amen  and  amen,  I  shouted,  and  so  loudly 
it  seemed  as  the  whole  city  must  hear.  Then  I  thought, 
but  I  did  not  feel  ashamed. 

I  heard  a  low  rumble,  the  grinding  as  of  iron  upon 
iron,  a  sudden  jerking  sound.  A  crowd  quickly  gathered. 
A  woman  rushed  through  it  and  bore  something  from 
the  track.  There  was  blood  upon  the  track.  The  form 
was  limp  and  blood  trickled  down  upon  her  dress- 
Pale  and  trembling,  she  bore  it  through  a  door,  the 
entrance  to  a  long  dark  passageway.  My  companion 
said :  "To-morrow  they  will  cart  it  away  to  the  Potter's 
Field.  He  was  such  a  bright  lad,  and  of  great  promise." 
But  the  father  ?  I  said,  "He  is  away  to  his  work."  But  the 
father's  work  ?  "You  do  not  understand,"  he  said,  and 
again  he  smiled.  But  surely,  I  persisted,  there  should 
be  no  Potter's  Field  in  a  country  such  as  this.  "In  your 
own  great  city,"  he  said,  "one  in  every  ten  is  buried  in 
the  Potter's  Field.  This  year  many  thousands  will  be 
hauled  there.  It  is  the  last  indignity  the  poor  fight  against 
but  the  living  must  have  bread  and  they  cannot  help  it." 
The  crowd  still  looked  at  the  blood  upon  the  track, 
but  the  car  had  moved  on. 

What  a  place,  I  thought,  for  a  child  to  play,  for  the 
[10] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

street  was  not  wide,  and  it  seemed  to  be  very  dirty  and 
it  was  very  hot,  and  many  teams  were  going  and  coming, 
and  through  them  cars  that  seemed  never  to  end  their 
clanging,  were  threading  their  way.  The  noise  and  now 
and  then  the  smells  were  something  frightful.  "Look 
about  you"  he  said.  I  looked  and  in  the  one  block  there 
were  over  a  hundred  children  at  play.  Why  do  they 
play  here  ?  Why  do  they  not  go  to  the  parks,  and  to  the 
prairies  about  the  city,  and  out  into  the  country  ?  And 
again  he  smiled  and  said  nothing.  The  air  was  close 
and  it  seemed  as  if  we  were  in  some  strange  place  under- 
ground where  there  was  no  light  nor  air,  only  noise 
and  commotion  and  smells  indescribable. 

And  I  saw  a  little  cortege  similar  to  the  one  we  had 
seen  before  but  it  was  longer  as  it  threaded  its  way 
along.  "Another  victim  of  the  plague."  The  plague  ? 
"  The  White  Plague.  This  time  it  is  a  mother.  She 
worked  until  a  few  days  ago.  Last  year  the  father  went 
with  it  and  two  children.  Three  are  left.  In  the  same 
tenement  over  a  dozen  have  gone  with  it  in  a  third  as 
many  years.  This  is  its  home.  These  houses,  these  rooms 
were  built  for  it.  From  here  it  spreads  itself  throughout 
the  city.  Three  times  as  many  take  it  here  as  in  other 
parts."  I  said,  Why  have  they  not  houses  with  more 
light,  more  air,  more  open  space  ?  And  again  he  smiled, 
and  said  nothing.  It  seemed  as  if  my  brain  were  on  fire 
and  I  longed  for  full  breaths  of  pure  air.  "We  must 
change,"  said  my  companion,  and  turning  he  led  the 
way. 

There  was  the  mingling  of  sounds  as  if  pieces  of  fine 
[11] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
metal  were  striking  one  another  in  the  air;  and  out  from 
under  the  shade  of  wide-spreading  trees  and  along  a 
smoothly  paved  road  a  low  hanging  carriage  rolled, 
almost  without  noise.  In  it  were  four  men.  All  looked 
so  comfortable,  so  big,  and  so  well-to-do.  Hope 
seemed  to  seize  me  and  I  said,  if  only  these  men  knew 
of  the  conditions  we  have  been  witnessing,  they  would 
go  to  their  relief.  My  companion  listened,  but  he  did  not 
seem  to  share  in  my  enthusiasm,  and  at  the  time  I  knew 
not  why.  "One,"  he  said,  "is  owner  of  the  mills  from 
which  you  saw  the  coarsely  booted  and  clothed  men 
with  pails  in  their  hands  coming  and  going,  the  men 
whose  wages  enable  them  to  live  only  in  the  most  meagre 
comfort  if  they  work  every  day  in  the  year  which  they 
never  do.  Very  large  sums  are  saved  by  closing  the  mills 
for  a  portion  of  each  year  and  even  when  they  are  run- 
ning, some  work  always  on  part  time  only." 

"His  companion  on  the  seat  with  him  is  owner  of 
works  where  many  hundreds  of  children  and  many 
women  are  employed.  Though  others  manage  the  works 
for  him,  they  have  machinery  which  children  can  tend 
that  saves  a  million  a  year  over  what  adult  labour  would 
cost.  It  is  very  hard  and  exacting  work  for  the  little  ones 
and  many  come  out  of  the  works  crippled  or  stunted 
and  deformed  for  life,  but  it  is  a  great  saving  for  the 
owner! 

"The  other  is  very  rich  and  prominent,  the  owner  of 
many  apartment  houses  as  he  calls  them,  in  the  portion 
of  the  city  we  have  just  been  visiting.  Tenements  and 
lung-blocks  those  who  live  in  or  near  them  call  them. 

[12] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

The  Honourable  Joseph,  his  friends  and  charitable  insti- 
tutions know  him  as.  Slimy  Joe  his  tenants  and  those 
who  have  close  dealings  with  him,  call  him ! 

"The  fourth  is  a  man  who  has  never  worked  at  all. 
He  inherited  properties  worth  many  millions.  Managers 
attend  to  these  and  collect  his  incomes.  Among  them 
are  many  extensive  railroad  properties.  His  father  was 
known  as  the  great  corruptionist.  His  managers  follow 
in  his  father's  practices.  He  is  a  lavish  spender  and 
loves  sport.  Though  large  and  strong  looking,  he  is 
never  well." 

But  all  the  rich  are  not  like  these,  I  volunteered. 
"By  no  means,"  he  replied.  "These  are  only  the  parasitic, 
the  low  down  rich,  those  whose  God,  whose  religion, 
whose  life  is  greed,  and  who  know  no  more.  But  their 
name  is  legion,  though  they  are  never  happy,  never 
at  peace." 

The  people,  the  people,  I  cried,  musing  on  the  great 
inequality  that  seemed  to  haunt  me.  "The  people  are 
a  fool.  They  do  not  think.  They  have  little  imagina- 
tion, scarcely  enough  to  know  their  power.  But  some 
day"  —  and  a  strange  light  passed  over  his  face  and  he 
seemed  filled  with  great  emotion,  but  did  not  finish  his 
thought.  Presently  he  continued,  "A  large  hospital  that 
many  of  the  rich  help  support  was  destroyed  some  days 
ago,  and  a  large  charity  ball  is  being  given  to  help 
rebuild  it.  They  are  on  their  way  to  it  now.  A  little  later  as 
you  look  in  upon  it  you  will  see  women,  wives  and  daugh- 
ters of  these,  and  others,  clad  in  garments  costing  almost 
fabulous   prices,   and   decked   with  jewels   and  gems 

[13] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

sufficient  in  value  to  feed  and  clothe  the  portions  of 
the  city  we  have  just  been  in  for  years.  I  will  point 
out  to  you  a  young  man  who  has  recently  come  into 
possession  of  over  thirty  millions,  who  has  never  done 
a  useful  day's  work  in  his  life  and  who  perhaps  never 
will.  I  will  point  out  to  you  a  lad  of  but  twelve  years 
who  upon  his  father's  demise  will  fall  heir  to  properties 
worth  over  a  hundred  million,  all  made  from  values 
created  by  the  people  of  the  city  where  his  properties 
lie.  Among  those  whom  you  will  see  to-night  you  will 
notice  many  most  vulgar  in  their  excessive  display,  and 
others  gross  and  vulgar  in  their  appearance,  for  excessive 
wealth  makes  gluttons  and  abnormals  of  many.  And 
when  you  see  the  haughty,  self-important  air  on  the 
part  of  many,  remember  it  is  merely  one  of  the  weak- 
nesses of  human  nature  to  which  the  excessively  rich  are 
easy  victims,  and  that  it  will  be  more  or  less  balanced 
by  the  presence  of  many  admirable  and  sensible  people, 
who  will  be  there  to-night.  There  are  few  of  the  very 
rich  and  none  of  the  excessively  rich  that  do  not  pay 
heavy  penalties  for  their  abnormal  hold  on  life,  the 
same  as  the  excessively  poor.  In  this  they  are  alike. 
Rejoice  that  you  are  of  neither  and  use  the  knowledge 
you  have  gained  for  the  good  of  both.  With  the  com- 
mon people  their  redemption  lies." 

I  thought  on  the  times  when  to  my  questions  he  smiled 
and  said  nothing,  and  then  I  seemed  to  understand 
clearly. 

"With  the  people,"  repeated  my  companion, 
as    he    touched  his    hand   upon  my    head.    I    seemed 

[14] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

for  a  while  to  be  absorbed,  yet  not  in  thought. 
Presently  I  perceived  that  I  was  alone,  when 
a  strange  fascination  took  possession  of  me, 
and  it  holds  me  still.  "With  the  people."  "With  the 
people." 


[15] 


II 

THE  CONDITIONS  THAT  HOLD  AMONG  US 

W  E  should  be  a  very  great  and  a  uniformly  prosperous 
people.  As  a  nation  we  have  had  advantages  and  oppor- 
tunities that  have  never  been  equalled  perhaps,  by  any 
people  thus  far  in  the  world's  history.  We  have  been 
free  from  the  cast  systems  and  certain  progress  strang- 
ling customs  of  the  old  world  countries;  we  have  enjoyed 
from  the  beginning  practically  full  civil  and  religious 
liberty;  we  started  free  from  that  dreary,  grinding, 
hopeless,  drink-impelling  poverty,  that  is  the  bane  and 
the  curse  of  so  many  of  the  old  world  countries;  we  have 
had  almost  universal  free  educational  opportunities 
for  our  boys  and  our  girls,  for  our  young  men  and  our 
young  women,  and  even  for  the  older  when  they  have 
so  chosen.  Our  natural  products  from  soil,  and  stream, 
and  mine  have  been  almost  fabulous  in  their  returns. 

We  should  be  a  uniformly  free  and  happy  and  pros- 
perous people.  But  we  are  not  uniformly  free,  neither 
happy  nor  prosperous.  These  statements  may  seem  to 
some  the  product  of  a  mind  ill  at  ease,  or  given  to 
misstatement  or  to  exaggeration.  Shall  we  see  ? 

For  all  practical  purposes,  we  do  individually  as  well 
as  collectively,  enjoy  civil  freedom.  But  he  who  is  not 
economically  free,  is  in  a  slavery  of  the  most  haunting 
and  endeavour-crushing  type. 

[16] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
And  over  ten  millions  of  our  people  are  in  a  state  of 
chronic  poverty  at  this  very  hour  —  almost  one  out  of 
every  seven,  or,  to  make  full  allowance,  one  out  of  every 
eight  of  all  our  people  are  in  the  condition  where  they 
have  not  sufficient  food,  and  clothing,  and  shelter  to 
keep  them  in  a  state  of  physical  and  mental  efficiency. 
And  the  sad  part  of  it  is  that  large  additional  numbers, 
—  numbers  most  appalling  for  such  a  country  as  this, 
are  each  year,  and  through  no  fault  of  their  own,  drop- 
ping into  this  same  condition. 

And  a  still  sadder  feature  of  it  is,  that  each  year  in- 
creasingly large  numbers  of  this  vast  army  of  people, 
our  fellow-beings,  are,  unwillingly  on  their  part  and  in  the 
face  of  almost  superhuman  efforts  to  keep  out  of  it  till 
the  last  moment,  dropping  into  the   pauper  class,  - 
those  who  are  compelled  to  seek  or  to  receive  aid  from 
a  public,  or  from  private  charity,  in  order  to  exist  at 
all  —  already  in   numbers   about   four   million,   while 
increasing  numbers  of  this  class,  the  pauper,  sink  each 
year,  and  so  naturally,  into  the  vicious,  the  criminal, 
the  inebriate  class.  In  other  words  we  have  gradually 
allowed  to  be  built  around  us  a  social  and  economic  sys- 
tem which  yearly  drives  vast  numbers  of  hitherto  fairly 
well-to-do,  strong,  honest,  earnest,  willing  and  admirable 
men  with  their  families  into  the  condition  of  poverty,  and 
under  its  weary,  endeavour-strangling  influences  many 
of  these  in  time,  hoping  against  hope,  struggling  to  the  last 
moment  in  their  semi-incapacitated  and  pathetic  manner 
to  keep  out  of  it,  are  forced  to  seek  or  to  accept  public 
or  private  charity,  and  thus  sink  into  the  pauper  class. 

[17] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

It  is  a  well  authenticated  fact  that  strong  men, 
now  weakened  by  poverty,  will  avoid  it  to  the  last  before 
they  will  take  this  step.  Many  after  parting  with  every- 
thing they  have  first,  break  down  and  cry  like  babes 
when  the  final  moment  comes,  and  they  can  avoid  it  no 
longer.  Numbers  at  this  time  take  their  own  lives 
rather  than  pass  through  the  ordeal,  and  still  larger 
numbers  desert  their  families  for  whom  they  have 
struggled  so  valiantly,  —  it  is  almost  invariably  the 
woman  who  makes  her  way  to  the  charity  agencies. 
The  public  and  private  charities  cost  the  country  during 
the  past  year  as  nearly  as  can  be  conservatively  arrived 
at,  over  $200,000,000. 

Moreover,  a  strange  law  seems  to  work  with  an 
accuracy  that  seems  almost  marvellous.  It  is  this.  Not- 
withstanding the  brave  and  almost  superhuman  strug- 
gles that  are  gone  through  with,  on  the  part  of  these, 
before  they  can  take  themselves  to  the  public  or 
private  charity  for  aid,  when  the  step  is  once  taken, 
they  gradually  sink  into  the  condition  where  all  initia- 
tive and  all  sense  of  self-reliance  seems  to  be  stifled  or 
lost,  and  it  is  only  a  rare  case  now  and  then  that  they 
ever  cease  to  be  dependent,  but  remain  content  with 
the  alms  that  are  doled  out  to  them,  —  practically  never 
do  they  rise  out  of  that  condition  again.  Talk  with 
practically  any  charity  agent  or  worker,  one  with  a 
sufficiently  extended  experience  and  you  will  find  that 
there  is  scarcely  more  than  one  type  of  testimony  con- 
cerning this.  And  as  this  condition  gradually  becomes 
chronic  and  endeavour  and  initiative  and  self-respect  are 

[18] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
lost,  a  certain  proportion  then  sink  into  the  condition 
of  the  criminal,  the  deseased,  the  chronically  drunk, 
the  inebriate,  from  which    reclamation   is    still    more 
difficult. 

There  are  reasons  for  these  conditions  coming  about, 
and  one  reason  chief  among  them  all,  that  we  shall 
consider  most  fully  in  its  proper  place.  First,  however, 
let  us  look  still  more  minutely  into  the  conditions  of  the 
type  we  have  been  considering  that  we  may  have  before 
us  facts  sufficient  in  number  and  in  power  to  impel  us 
to  an  examination  of  the  causes  which  have  brought 
about  these  conditions. 

As  has  been  stated,  there  are  at  the  present  time  over 
ten  million  of  our  fellow-beings  living  in  a  state  of 
poverty,  that  is,  without  sufficient  of  food  and  clothing 
and  shelter  to  keep  them  in  a  first-class  condition  even 
as  animals  are  kept,  —  to  keep  them  in  a  state  of  effi- 
ciency to  compete  in  the  struggle  for  work;  and  when  at 
work,  the  rush  and  the  strain  in  many  centres  has 
become  so  great,  and  the  competition  for  even  a  mere 
livelihood  so  keen,  that  no  one  can  afford  to  be  even  for 
the  shortest  period,  in  anything  but  a  state  of  full  and 
complete  efficiency. 

The  above  estimate  is  based,  among  others,  upon  the 
careful  estimates  made  by  Mr.  Robert  Hunter,  in  that 
late  and  very  admirable  book,"  Poverty,"*  and  has  been 
formulated  from  a  very  wide  range  of  statistics  and  facts 
and  observations.  Moreover,  as  this  estimate  has  been 
made  only  on  the  basis  of  the  distress  which  manifests 
*Macmillan  &  Company,  New  York  and  London. 
[19] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

itself,  such  as  pauper  burials,  yearly  evictions,  the  num- 
bers applying  for  public  charity,  the  vast  armies  out  of 
employment  for  some  portion  of  the  year,  it  must  be 
most  clearly  evident  that  there  is  a  very  large  additional 
number  who  are  in  great  need,  many  in  dire  distress, 
who  suffer  keenly  but  bear  it  bravely,  and  suffer  and 
struggle  on,  without  its  ever  becoming  evident  to  the 
world. 

After  stating  that  in  1903,  20  per  cent  of  the  peo- 
ple of  Boston  were  in  distress;  in  1897,  19  per  cent 
of  the  people  of  New  York  State;  in  1899,  18  per 
cent  of  the  people  of  the  New  York  State;  in  1903, 
14  per  cent  of  the  families  of  Manhattan  were 
evicted;  and  every  year  10  per  cent  (about)  of  those 
who  die  in  Manhattan  have  pauper  burials, —  facts 
taken  directly  from  city  and  state  statistics,  and  the 
pathos  and  tragedy  and  suffering  they  stand  for  so 
plainly  evident,  Mr.  Hunter  goes  on  to  say:  "These 
figures,  furthermore,  represent  only  the  distress  which 
manifests  itself.  There  is  no  question  but  that  only  part 
of  those  in  poverty,  in  any  community,  apply  for  charity. 
I  think  anyone  living  in  a  Settlement  will  support  me 
in  saying  that  many  families  who  are  obviously  poor  — 
that  is,  underfed,  underclothed,  or  badly  housed  — 
never  ask  for  aid  or  suffer  the  social  disgrace  of  eviction. 
Of  course,  no  one  could  estimate  the  proportion  of  those 
who  are  evicted  or  of  those  who  ask  assistance  to  the 
total  number  in  poverty ;  for  whatever  opinion  one  may 
have  formed  is  based,  not  on  actual  knowledge,  gained 
by  inquiry,  but  on  impressions,  gained  through  friendly 
[20] 


In  the  Fire  of  the   Heart 

intercourse.  My  own  opinion  is  that  probably  not  over 
half  of  those  in  poverty  ever  apply  for  charity,  and  cer- 
tainly not  more  than  that  proportion  are  evicted  from 
their  homes.  However,  I  should  not  wish  an  opinion 
of  this  sort  to  be  used  in  estimating  from  the  figures  of 
distress,  etc.,  the  number  of  those  in  poverty.  And  yet 
from  the  facts  of  distress,  as  given,  and  from  opinions 
formed,  both  as  a  charity  agent  and  as  a  Settlement 
worker,  I  should  not  be  at  all  surprised  if  the  number 
of  those  in  poverty  in  New  York,  as  well  as  in  other 
large  cities  and  industrial  centres,  rarely  fell  below 
25  per  cent  of  all  the  people." 

Speaking  of  unemployment,*  and  when  one's  wage  is 
about  a  "living  wage,"  that  is,  sufficient  to  keep  him 
and  his  family  in  fair  condition,  providing  he  loses  no 
time  whatever,  we  can  easily  see  what  unemployment 
even  for  a  very  short  period  must  necessarily  mean.  Mr. 
Hunter  says:  "The  figures  of  unemployment,  although 
very  imperfect,  show  that  the  evil  is  wide-spread,  even  in 
times  of  prosperity.  .  .  .  In  the  last  census  (that  of  1900) 
the  number  found  to  be  unemployed  at  sometime  during 
the  year  was  6,468,964,  or  22.3  per  cent  of  all  the  work- 
ers over  ten  years  of  age,engaged  in  gainful  occupations. 
Thirty -nine  per  cent  of  the  male  workers  unemployed, 
or  2,069,546  persons,  were  idle  from  four  to  six  months 

*  At  this  present  time — a  period  of  unusual  commercial  and  indus- 
trial activity — less  than  the  average  number  are  out  of  employment. 
But  with  our  present  methods,  this  dreaded  and  hard  condition,  that 
has  in  the  aggregate  affected  millions  among  us,  is  liable  to  repeat 
itself  at  any  time.  Any  fair  dealing,  therefore,  with  the  economic 
conditions  of  the  nation  cannot  omit  a  consideration,  or  at  least  a 
mention,  of  these  conditions. 

[21] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

of  the  year.  These  figures  are  for  the  country  as  a  whole, 
for  all  industries  including  agriculture.  In  manufactur- 
ing alone  the  unemployment  rose  to  27.2  per  cent  of  all 
the  workers.  In  the  industrial  states  of  the  East  and 
North  the  percentage  of  unemployment  is  larger  than 
for  the  country  as  a  whole.  The  Massachusetts  census 
for  1895  showed  that  8,339  workmen  were  unemployed 
continuously  during  that  year,  and  that  252,456  persons 
were  irregularly  employed.  This  means  that  over  27 
per  cent  of  all  persons  covered  by  the  inquiry  were  idle 
some  portion  of  the  year.  That  this  is  not  exceptional 
is  shown  by  the  Massachusetts  census  for  1885.  At  that 
time  over  29  per  cent  of  the  workmen  were  irregularly 
employed.  In  other  words,  the  annual  wages  of  more 
than  one  workman  in  every  four  suffered  considerable 
decrease  by  reason  of  a  period  of  enforced  idleness, 
extending  in  some  cases  over  several  months.  In  the 
industrial  towns,  such  as  Haverhill,  New  Bedford,  and 
Fall  River,  the  irregularity  of  employment  was  even 
greater.  In  these  towns  from  39  to  62  per  cent  of  the 
workmen  were  idle  during  some  part  of  the  year." 

That  very  large  numbers  of  workers,  heads  of  fami- 
lies, receive  for  their  work  an  insufficient  amount  to 
keep  themselves  and  their  families  in  comfort  as  well 
as  in  a  state  of  efficiency,  is  a  well-ascertained  fact.  Very 
large  numbers  are  not  receiving  what  is  known  as  a 
"living  wage."  That  there  are  those  who  do  receive 
enough  to  keep  themselves  and  their  families  in  com- 
fort, but  who  fail  to  do  so,  either  on  account  of  intem- 
perance, or  bad  management,  or  misfortune  of  some 

[22] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
kind,  or  through  lack  of  an  ordinary  good  management, 
or  by  reason  of  some  other  cause  or  causes,  is  undoubt- 
edly true,  and  to  deny  it  would  be  entirely  useless.  That, 
on  the  other  hand,  there  are  vast  numbers  who  are  re- 
ceiving a  wage  insufficient  even  by  the  utmost  economy, 
good  management  and  self-denial,  to  keep  themselves 
in  a  state  of  comfort  and  efficiency  is  most  abundantly 
true.  Were  this  number  very  small  instead  of  being  of 
such  enormous  proportions,  it  would  be  a  menace  to 
the  highest  welfare  of  the  country  as  well  as  a  disgrace 
so  great  as  to  demand  that  its  causes  be  ascertained  and 
eradicated. 

It  would  be  a  very  hard  matter,  as  can  readily  be 
seen,  to  establish  a  necessary  or  "living  wage"  that 
would  be  such  for  all  portions  of  the  country,  because 
living  expenses  in  some  sections  are  necessarily  con- 
siderably higher  than  in  others.  We  can  approach, 
however,  to  an  average  necessary  wage  by  ascertaining 
what  good  authorities,  as  well  as  careful  investigators, 
have  practically  decreed  as  a  necessary  wage  in  various 
employments  as  well  as  sections  of  the  country.  John 
Mitchell  has  said,  in  his  book  on  "  Organized  Labor " : 
"  For  the  great  mass  of  unskilled  workingmen,  .  .  . 
residing  in  towns  and  cities  with  a  population  of  from 
five  thousand  to  one  hundred  thousand,  a  fair  wage,  a 
wage  consistent  with  American  standards  of  living, 
should  not  be  less  than  $600  a  year.  Less  than  this 
would,  in  my  judgment,  be  insufficient  to  give  to  the 
workingman  those  necessaries  and  comforts  and  those 
small  luxuries  which  are  now  considered  essential." 

[23] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

It  has  been  shown  by  the  Massachusetts  Bureau  of 
Statistics  of  Labor  (1901)  that  $754  a  year  is  required 
for  a  family  of  five  persons  to  live  on.  An  able  official  of 
one  of  the  largest  New  York  City  charities  states  that  as 
a  result  of  his  observations  two  dollars  a  day,  or  about 
$624  a  year,  is  necessary  for  a  family  of  five  in  New  York 
City.  Without  going  farther  into  the  matter  this  would 
establish  an  average  necessary  wage  of  about  $659  a 
year.  And  while  this  may  be  greater  than  necessary,  as 
it  undoubtedly  is  for  some  localities,  it  is  not  too  high 
an  amount  for  many  others. 

In  the  light  of  this  it  will  be  interesting  as  well  as 
valuable  to  see  what  in  various  localities,  as  well  as  lines 
of  work,  the  actual  wages  received  are.  The  census  of 
1900  shows  that  the  average  yearly  earnings  of  each  of 
5,308,406  persons  engaged  in  manufacturing  was 
$437.96.  The  previous  census,  that  of  1890,  showed  that 
it  was  $444.83  per  worker.  This  slight  difference,  the 
census  bureau  says:  "was  only  an  apparent  one,  due 
partly  to  the  exclusion  of  high-salaried  foremen  and 
managers  from  the  returns  of  the  census  of  1900,  partly 
due  also  to  the  more  complete  returns  of  the  lower-paid 
labour  in  the  south. 

The  following  table  (the  census  of  1900)  subdivides 
the  census  compilation  for  a  number  of  cities  as  follows : 

Average  No.  Average 

wage-earners,    yearly  wages. 

The  10  largest  cities 1,412,831         $489 

154  next  largest 1,599,033  445 

Outside  these  cities 2,294,279  400 

5,306,143 

[24] 


In  the  Fire  oj  the  Heart 
For  this  number  of  wage-earners,  a  little  over  five  mil- 
lion, the  average  wage  therefore,  was  in  round  numbers, 
$445. 

Dr.  Peter  Roberts  says  that  the  average  yearly  wage 
in  the  anthracite  coal  district  is  less  than  $500,  and  that 
about  60  per  cent  of  the  workers  receive  less  than  $450. 
The  Federal  census  for  1900  states  that  11  per  cent  of 
the  male  workers,  over  16  years  of  age  employed  in  the 
New  England  cotton  mills,  received  a  rate  of  pay  amount- 
ing to  less  than  $6  a  week,—  about  $300  a  year.  This,  it 
must  be  noted,  was  their  rate  of  pay,  that  is,  what  they 
would  have  earned  had  they  worked  every  day  in  the 
year,  hence  not  the  actual  wage  received. 

In  the  Middle  States  nearly  a  third  of  all  the  workers 
are  receiving  a  rate  of  wages  less  than  $300  per  year, 
and  in  the  Southern  States,  considerably  over  half  — 
59  per  cent  —  are  receiving  less  than  this  amount. 
When  the  time  that  they  cannot  work  is  taken  out,  we 
can  readily  see  what  this  amount  means.  In  many  cases 
it  means  at  least  one  fourth  less  in  actual  wages  re- 
ceived. In  the  shoe-making  industry  less  than  $300 
a  year  is  received  by  51  per  cent  of  unskilled  work- 
ers, in  the  Central  States  by  80.3  per  cent,  and  in  the 
Middle  States  by  87  per  cent  of  this  same  class  of 
workers. 

Testimony  was  presented  before  the  Industrial  Com- 
mission showing  that  the  150,000  track  hands  working 
on  the  railroads  of  the  United  States  received  wages 
ranging  from  47|  cents  a  day  for  the  South  to  $1.25  a 
day  in  the  North.  The  highest  wage  they  would  receive 

[25] 


In  tlie  Fire  of  the  Heart 

then  would  be  about  $150  a  year  for  the  South,  and  a 
little  less  than  $375  for  the  North.  Testimony  was  given 
by  the  same  witness  that  these  wages  were  also  paid  to 
the  carmen  and  shopmen  in  the  North  and  South,  num- 
bering about  200,000  men.  Before  the  same  In- 
dustrial Commission,  testimony  was  given  that  the 
wages  of  the  street-car  employees  ranged  from  $320  to 
$460  a  year. 

From  this  we  are  able  to  get  some  idea  of  what  the 
needs  of  some  millions  in  the  country  are  compared  to 
what  they  are  able  actually  to  receive  to  meet  these 
needs.  And  then  when  sickness  comes,  or  death,  or 
accident,  or  misfortune  of  any  type  as  well  as  being 
temporarily  thrown  out  of  employment,  which  is  many 
times  a  misfortune  of  the  gravest  moment,  we  can  readily 
see  what  distress  and  uncertainty  must  result.  Certainly 
we  need  brought  about  in  the  nation  a  condition  that 
gives  an  economic  and  industrial  state  which  guaran- 
tees at  least  a  fairly  decent  living  wage  and  a 
regularity  of  employment  to  the  great  hosts  who  to- 
day are  denied  them.  This,  indeed,  is  fundamental. 
I  can  scarcely  resist  here  the  impulse  to  quote  an- 
other paragraph  or  two  from  Mr.  Hunter's  admirable 
work : 

"  Among  the  many  inexplicable  things  in  life,  there  is 
probably  nothing  more  out  of  reason  than  our  disregard 
for  preventive  measures  and  our  apparent  willingness 
to  provide  almshouses,  prisons,  asylums,  hospitals, 
homes,  etc.,  for  the  victims  of  our  neglect.  Poverty  is  a 
culture  bed  for  criminals,  paupers,  vagrants,  and  for 
[26] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

such  diseases  as  inebriety,  insanity,  and  imbecility;  and 
yet  we  endlessly  go  on  in  our  unconcern,  or  in  our  blind- 
ness, heedless  of  its  sources,  believing  all  the  time  that 
we  are  merciful  in  administering  to  its  unfortunate  re- 
sults. Those  in  poverty  are  fighting  a  losing  struggle, 
because  of  unnecessary  burdens  which  we  might  lift 
from  their  shoulders ;  but  not  until  they  go  to  pieces  and 
become  drunken,  vagrant,  criminal,  diseased,  and 
suppliant,  do  we  consider  mercy  necessary.  But  in  that 
day  reclamation  is  almost  impossible,  the  degeneracy 
of  the  adults  infects  the  children,  and  the  foulest  of  our 
social  miseries  is  thus  perpetuated  from  generation  to 
generation.  From  the  millions  struggling  with  poverty 
come  the  millions  who  have  lost  all  self-respect  and 
ambition,  who  hardly,  if  ever,  work,  who  are  aimless 
and  drifting,  who  like  drink,  who  have  no  thought  for 
their  children,  and  who  live  contentedly  on  rubbish  and 
alms.  But  a  short  time  before  many  of  them  were  of 
that  great,  splendid  mass  of  producers  upon  which  the 
material  welfare  of  the  nation  rests.  They  were  in 
poverty,  but  they  were  self-respecting;  they  were 
hard-pressed,  but  they  were  ambitious,  determined, 
and  hard  working.  They  were  also  underfed,  under- 
clothed,  and  miserably  housed, —  the  fear  and  dread 
of  want  possessed  them,  they  worked  sore,  but 
gained  nothing,  they  were  isolated,  heart-worn  and 
weary." 

It  is  true,  as  can  be  readily  established,  that  during 
the  past  few  years  there  has  been  on  the  whole  an  in- 
crease of  wages, —  though  by  no  means  in  all  cases, — 
[27] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

but  at  the  same  time  through  various  other  combina- 
tions of  economic  causes  there  has  been  an  increase  in 
the  prices  of  the  various  commodities  as  well  as  actual 
necessities  of  life,  many  of  which  have  been  enormous 
and  out  of  all  keeping  with  whatever  advance  there  has 
been  in  wages.  Under  the  title,  "  Wages  and  the  Cost  of 
Living,"  the  following  paragraph  appeared  in  the  Arena 
for  November,  1903.  "  The  special  pleaders  for  corpora- 
tions and  trusts  have  made  a  great  deal  of  capital  out  of 
the  fact  that  between  1897  and  1901  the  wages  in  New 
York  City  have  in  sixteen  trades  risen  from  an  average 
of  $2.78  to  $2.91  a  day,  and  this  fact  has  been  broadly 
heralded  through  Great  Britain  as  an  argument  in 
favour  of  protection  and  monopoly.  But  these  special 
pleaders  for  plutocracy  fail  to  mention  another  fact, 
and  one  which  entirely  changes  the  nature  of  the  case. 
They  fail  to  state  that  during  this  period  the  cost  of 
living  in  the  Empire  City  increased  10  per  cent  above 
the  increase  in  wages,  while  since  1901  the  cost  of  living 
has  steadily  risen.  Dun's  Agency  places  the  increase 
at  over  33  per  cent.  "And  according  to  the  Dun  Mercan- 
tile Agency  report  on  March  1,  1906,  the  cost  of  living 
for  the  entire  country  was  then  the  highest  it  has  been 
during  the  thirty  years  it  has  kept  a  record.  This  coupled 
with  the  uncertainty  of  employment  in  so  many  lines  of 
work,  that  is,  the  necessaiy  non-employment  during  a 
certain  number  of  weeks  in  the  year,  works  in  many 
cases,  as  we  can  readily  see,  almost  untold  hardships. 

We  are  still  considering  this  vast  army  of  over  ten 
millions  in  our  country  who  are  living  in  poverty  in   the 

[28] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

face  of  our  great  apparent  prosperity,  much  of  which  is 
indeed  apparent  when  the  facts  are  carefully  looked 
into.  There  has  been  of  late  years  a  great  prosperity, 
but  confined  so  generally  to  such  a  small  group,  or  to 
such  small  groups  of  people,  that  its  force  is  to  a  great 
measure  lost  when  considered  in  connection  with  the 
great  mass  of  the  people. 

The  number  of  propertyless  persons,  that  is,  tenants, 
in  a  state  or  country,  is  many  times  a  good  criterion  of 
the  real  standard,  or  rather  the  diffusion  of  its  prosperity. 
The  census  returns  for  1900  show  that  8,365,739  fam- 
ilies, or  54  per  cent  do  not  own  the  homes  in  which 
they  live,  that  is,  they  are  continually  paying  rent.  Those 
owning  and  occupying  mortgaged  homes  were  2,196,- 
375 ;  while  those  living  in  homes  that  were  wholly  and 
actually  their  own  were  4,761,211,  or  but  31  per  cent 
of  the  total  number  of  families  in  the  country.  Of  course, 
the  number  of  families  owning  their  own  homes  is  much 
smaller  in  the  cities  than  in  the  smaller  towns.  In  several 
of  our  larger  cities,  probably  99  per  cent  of  the  wage- 
earners  do  not  own  the  homes  in  which  they  live,  but 
are  each  year  paying  out,  sometimes  as  much  as  40  per 
cent  of  their  earnings,  in  rent.  I  have  seen  it  estimated 
that  the  amount  paid  in  rent  and  in  interest  on  mortgag- 
ed homes  is  at  least  two  billion  dollars  per  year, —  less 
the  amount  paid  in  taxes, —  and  this  vast  amount  is 
annually  transferred  into  the  pockets  of  10  per  cent  of  the 
population,  the  rent  paid  for  property  used  as  homes  only. 

The  last  Federal  census  shows  the  following  percent- 
age of  homes  rented  in  the  various  cities,  enumerated : 
[29] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

Boston    81.1 

Chicago   74.9 

Cincinnati 79 . 1 

Fall  River 82.0 

Holyoke 80.6 

New  York  (Manhattan) 94. 1 

Philadelphia    77.9 

In  160  cities,  of  at  least  25,000  inhabitants  each,  the 
average  number  of  tenants  is  seventy-four  in  every 
hundred. 

Professor  J.  G.  Collins,  a  statistician  who  had  charge 
of  some  of  the  inquiries  of  the  census  of  1890,  estimated 
that  only  about  10  per  cent  of  the  population  of  the 
country  were  landlords,  and  that  these  owned  and  con- 
trolled somewhere  near  90  per  cent  of  the  nation's 
total  land  values. 

The  idea  I  think  quite  generally  prevails  that  the 
great  agricultural  population  of  the  nation  is  in  a  gener- 
ally prosperous  condition,  and  that  there  are  but  few 
who  do  not  own  the  farms  upon  which  they  live  and 
which  they  till.  Certainly  it  is  natural  to  suppose  that 
such  is  the  case.  The  total  number  of  farms  in  the  United 
States  is  5,737,372,  supporting  a  population  of  about 
28,000,000  people.  Mr.  George  K.  Holmes,  a  very  cau- 
tious and  careful  investigator,  has  shown  that  on  the 
basis  of  the  census  of  1890,  over  34  per  cent  of  our 
farmers  are  tenants,  and  an  additional  18.6  per  cent 
have  their  farms  mortgaged.  Accordingly  over  one-half 
of  the  farmers  of  the  country  have  only  a  partial  owner- 
ship in  their  farms  or  are  propertyless. 

When  we  consider  the  great  numbers  of  families 
[30] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

whose  wages  or  incomes  are  scarcely  sufficient  to  keep 
them  above  continual  want,  or  in  other  words,  above  the 
poverty  line,  and  then  only  when  they  are  working 
every  work-day  of  the  year,  we  can  see  what  havoc  is 
wrought  when  any  extra  calls  are  made  or  burdens 
thrown  upon  them,  when  sickness  or  accident  comes,  or 
death  takes  place,  either  on  the  part  of  the  breadwinner 
or  in  his  family.  When  one  is  receiving  just  a  living  wage, 
or  as  in  so  many  cases,  less  than  a  living  wage,  it  means 
untold  hardship  when  any  of  these  come.  This  un- 
doubtedly is  one  of  the  great  agencies  that  keeps  a  large 
number  of  this  great  army  in  poverty. 

The  frightful  killings  and  maimings  that  are  continu- 
ally going  on  in  connection  with  our  railroads  and  var- 
ious other  large  industries, —  and  we  are  the  most  back- 
ward country  in  the  world  in  our  gross  neglect  in  com- 
pelling greater  safety  and  care, —  is  also  responsible  for 
untold  hardship  and  suffering.  To  show  how  dangerous 
and  uncertain  the  work  of  a  railway  employee  is, 
the  following  facts  will  indicate.  The  Interstatej  Com- 
merce Commission  for  the  year  1902  reported  among  em- 
ployees 53,493  injured  or  killed,  among  passengers  7,028, 
other  persons,  12,729,  with  a  total  of  73,250.  These 
figures  are  indeed,  scarcely  believable.  And  in  the 
previous  year,  out  of  every  399  employees,  one  was  killed, 
and  one  out  of  every  26  was  injured.  The  trainmen, — 
engineers,  firemen,  conductors,  brakemen,  etc.,  are  the 
greatest  sufferers.  Among  these  one  was  killed  for  every 
137  employed,  and  one  was  injured  for  every  eleven 
employed.  It  is  indeed  difficult  to  believe  that  in  this 
[31] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

day  and  age  such  slaughter,  and  much  of  it  so  unneces- 
sary, is  permitted  to  go  on  year  after  year :  and  strange 
as  it  may  seem  the  railroad  owners  or  managers  resist, 
and  resist  most  powerfully,  practically  every  attempt 
that  is  made  to  compel  them  to  adopt  various,  and 
many  times  well  known,  safety  devices. 

The  Accident  Bulletin  issued  by  the  Commission  for 
the  three  months  ending  March  31,  1906,  shows  the 
total  number  of  casualities  to  passengers  and  employees 
to  be  18,296  (1,126  killed  and  17,179  injured).  In  closing 
the  Bulletin  says: 

"  The  most  disastrous  accident  reported  in  the  present 
bulletin  —  a  collision,  causing  thirty -four  deaths  and 
injuring  twenty -four  —  was  due  to  the  striking  failure 
of  the  train-despatching  system.  A  telegraph  operator 
at  a  small  and  lonely  station,  who  had  been  on  duty  all 
day  and  more  than  half  the  night,  fell  asleep,  and  on 
awaking  misinformed  the  train  despatcher  as  to  what 
had  occurred  while  he  was  asleep.  It  is  pertinent  to 
observe  that  the  block  system  repeatedly  advocated  by 
the  Commission,  is  the  true  means  that  ought  to  be 
adopted  for  such  distressing  disasters  as  that  reported 
in  Accident  Bulletin  No.  19,  just  made  public." 

"  These  injuries  to  railway  workmen  are  more  serious 
than  at  first  appears,  for  very  few  of  the  men  who  are  injur- 
ed are  over  thirty-five,  and  most  of  them  are  in  the  twen- 
ties. This  period  —  between  twenty  and  thirty-five  —  is 
the  most  important  period  of  a  workman's  life.  Itis  the  time 
when  he  is  of  utmost  value  to  his  family,  since  the  children 
are  still  too  young  to  take  up  the  support  of  the  family. 
[32] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

"The  responsibility  of  the  railroads  for  poverty,  re- 
sulting from  injuries  or  casualties,  is  of  three  kinds  at 
least.  First:  In  many  cases  they  overwork  their  em- 
ployees. Dr.  Samuel  McCune  Lindsay  says:  'Emer- 
gencies frequently  occur  due  to  accidents  or  condition 
of  weather  when  men  may  be  required  to  work  contin- 
uously from  twenty  to  thirty  hours,  and,  in  exceptional 
cases,  men  have  been  continuously  at  work  in  train 
service  for  thirty-six  hours.'  Second:  Many  railroad  sys- 
tems have  resisted  and  violated  the  law  compelling  them 
to  put  on  automatic  couplers,  and  they  are  now  fighting 
the  introduction  of  the  block  system,  both  of  which 
improvements  are  designed  to  prevent  accidents  and 
injuries.  Third :  In  case  of  accidents,  '  company '  physi- 
cians and  lawyers  hasten  immediately  to  the  place  of 
the  accident,  and,  if  possible,  persuade  the  workmen  to 
sign  contracts  by  which  they  agree,  for  some  small 
immediate  compensation,  to  release  the  company  from 
any  further  liability.  I  have  known  many,  many  cases 
where  workmen  have,  for  a  few  dollars,  signed 
away  their  rights  to  sue  when  their  injuries  have  been 
as  serious  as  the  loss  of  a  leg  or  arm.  In  the  seventeen 
years  ending  June  30, 1902, 103,320  persons  were  killed, 
and  587,028  injured  by  the  railway  industry."* 

Of  the  anthracite  regions,  Dr.  Peter  Roberts,  who  has 
made  a  very  careful  study  of  the  industrial  and  social 
conditions  there,  says :  "  Nearly  half  the  employees  have 
no  provision  for  either  the  incapacitated  through  acci- 
dent or  for  the  maintenance  of  widows  and  orphans 
♦"Poverty"— Robert  Hunter,  p.  38. 

[33] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

when  death  befalls  those  who  provide  for  them  in  this 
hazardous  calling.  Many  operators  display  generosity 
worthy  of  emulation ;  others  manifest  criminal  indiffer- 
ence to  the  sufferings  of  employees  and  their  families 
because  of  accident.  .  .  .  To  leave  these  men  to  the 
mercy  of  overbearing  operators  in  case  of  injury  and 
death  is  unworthy  of  the  civilization  of  the  century  in 
which  we  live. " 

From  these  facts  and  figures  we  can  see  what  a  large 
number  of  semi -incapacitated,  and  in  case  of  the  death 
of  the  breadwinner  what  a  large  number  of  practically 
dependent  people  are  thrown  each  year  upon  the  pub- 
lic for  support,  or  who  have  to  accept  the  condition 
of  the  pauper.  We  have  much  to  learn  from  the  German 
system  in  this  respect.  As  a  result  of  statistics  gathered 
in  connection  with  its  splendidly  growing  insurance 
systems, —  for  old  age,  accident,  sickness,  infirmity, — 
it  has  made  an  effort  to  find  out  who  is  responsible  for 
the  suffering,  and  to  demand  accordingly  compensation 
for  the  injured.  In  other  words  it  has  fixed  not  upon  the 
individual,  who  is  many  times  entirely  helpless  in  re- 
gard to  the  matter,  but  upon  industry  and  upon  society 
the  responsibility  for  much  of  its  poverty  and  attendant 
suffering.  It  found  that  80  per  cent  of  all  accidents  in  in- 
dustrial lines  were  due  to  the  "professional  risks"  of 
industry  itself,  and  as  a  consequence  the  industries  of 
that  nation  must  bear  the  cost  of  these  accidents,* 
and  not  the  workingmen  themselves.  How  differ- 
ent from  our  almost  barbarous  conditions  in  this  respect. 
♦"Workman's  Insurance  Abroad"  by  Dr.  Zacher,  1898,  Berlin. 
[34] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

Certainly  the  criminal  negligence  of  the  railroads 
as  well  as  other  great  lines  of  industry  in  this  terrible 
and  to  a  large  extent  preventable  slaughter, —  at  the 
cost  of  slightly  reduced  dividends  only,  is  indeed 
appalling,  and  is  equalled  only  by  the  stupid  negligence 
of  the  public  in  allowing  it  to  continue.  A  change  will 
come,  however. 

Sickness  means  far  more  to  the  wage-earner  than  to 
any  other  class,  and  for  two,  if  not  indeed  for  more, 
reasons.  In  the  first  place  the  loss  of  the  wage  if  it  be 
the  wage-earner,  or  the  increased  expenses  if  it  be  one 
of  his  family,  means  immediate  hardship  where  there 
is  no  reserve  power,  as  in  such  large  numbers  of  cases 
where  one  is  receiving  just  a  living  wage  there  cannot 
be;  and  in  the  second  place,  the  care  and  attention  that 
can  be  secured  are  not  at  all  equal  to  those  that  can  be 
had  by  the  more  well-to-do.  Especially  is  this  true  when 
so  many  hundreds  of  thousands  are  compelled  to  live 
in  the  types  of  tenements  landlords  are  permitted  to 
extract  their  rent  from.  But  this  is  again  the  result  of 
our  general  economic  condition,  for  people  would  not 
live  in  these, —  some  would,  but  very,  very  few, —  if 
their  incomes  or  wages  permitted  them  to  live  in  quarters 
any  better. 

These  conditions  to  a  great  extent  are  responsible 
for  that  slowly  devouring,  subtle,  but  most  deadly 
modern  plague  among  us, —  tuberculosis,  sometimes 
called  the  "  Great  White  Plague.  "  It  will  in  this  twelve- 
month claim  in  New  York  City  alone  not  less  than 
fifteen  thousand  of  its  people,  in  the  United  States  not 
[35] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

less  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand,  in  the  world 
over  a  million.  And  yet  it  to  a  very  great  extent  is  an 
entirely  preventable  disease.  Social  and  economic 
conditions  far  below  what  they  might  be  are  to  a  very 
great  extent  responsible  for  its  never  diminishing  pre- 
valence. Of  it  Mr.  Hunter,*  who  has  had  perhaps  as 
great  opportunities  for  observing  its  growth  and  its 
methods  as  anyone  not  directly  connected  with  the 
medical  profession,  says:  "It  is  a  needless  plague,  a 
preventable  plague.  It  is  one  of  the  results  of  our  in- 
humane tenements;  it  follows  in  the  train  of  our  in- 
humane sweatshops;  it  fastens  itself  upon  children  and 
young  people  because  we  forget  that  they  need  play- 
grounds and  because  we  are  selfish  and  niggardly  in 
providing  breathing  spaces;  it  comes  where  the  hours 
of  labour  are  long  and  the  wages  small;  it  afflicts  the 
children  who  are  sent  to  labour  when  they  should  yet 
be  in  school ;  the  plague  goes  to  meet  them.  It  is  a  brother 
to  the  anguish  of  poverty,  and  wherever  food  is  scant 
and  bodies  half  clothed  and  rooms  dark,  this  hard  and 
relentless  brother  of  poverty  finds  a  victim.     .     .     . 

"The  extent  of  the  White  Plague  is  one  of  the  best 
tests  of  a  high  or  low  state  of  society;  in  many  ways  it 
is  the  truest  and  most  accurate  of  social  tests.  The 
number  of  its  victims  will  indicate  the  districts  in  which 
sweat-shops  flourish,  and  the  streets  in  which  the  double- 
decker  tenement,  the  scourge  of  New  York,  is  most 
often  found.  Where  the  death  rate  from  the  plague 
is  greatest   there   ignorance   prevails;   drunkenness   is 

*  "  Poverty,"  page  164. 

[36] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
rife;  poverty,  hunger,  and  cold  are  the  common  mis- 
fortune.    .     .     . 

"Tuberculosis  is  more  common  in  the  cities  than  in 
the  country.  The  death  rate  from  this  disease  in  the 
cities  of  over  twenty-five  thousand  inhabitants  is  about 
twice  that  of  the  rural  districts  of  the  state.  The  tene- 
ment districts  suffer  much  more  from  the  disease 
than  do  the  well-to-do  districts.  In  Paris  the  death  rate 
is  three  times  as  great  in  the  poorest  quarters  as  it  is 
is  in  the  well-to-do  quarters.  In  Hamburg  the  propor- 
tion is  almost  the  same.  In  the  First  Ward,  near  the 
Battery  in  New  York  City,  fourteen  times  as  many 
people  die  from  tuberculosis,  in  proportion  to  popula- 
tion, as  in  a  certain  ward  adjoining  Central  Park. 
Obviously  it  is  a  plague  which  exists  much  more  among 
the  poor  than  among  the  rich.     .     .     . 

"  The  disease  is  one  which  affects  especially  residents 
of  the  tenements  and  the  workers  in  certain  trades,  as, 
for  instance,  printers,  tailors,  bookkeepers,  dressmakers, 
bakers,  cigar-makers,  potters,  stone-cutters,  file-grinders, 
dyers,   wool-carders,   etc. 

"To  know  why  these  classes  of  people  are  affected, 
let  us  for  a  moment  consider  how  the  disease  is  spread. 
A  person  having  consumption  can,  it  is  said,  expectorate 
in  a  day  seven  billions  of  germs  or  bacilli.  These  germs 
or  bacilli  are  the  only  cause  of  the  disease.  The  sputa 
or  expectorations  from  the  diseased  lungs  dry  and  after- 
ward become  a  pulverized  dust  which  is  blown  about 
through  tenements,  theatres,  street  cars,  railway  trains, 
offices,  and  factories.  In  fact,  the  infection  is  dissemi- 

[37] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
nated  wherever  tuberculosis  sputum  becomes  dry  and 
pulverized.  The  germ  is  killed  by  sunlight  and  lives 
but  a  short  time  in  the  open  air,  but  it  will  live  for  months 
in  darkness  or  in  places  artificially  lighted.     .     .     . 

"  Tins  dry,  pulverized  dust  is  the  most  important  of 
the  means  of  spreading  tuberculosis  throughout  all  parts 
of  the  city,  so  that,  I  do  not  doubt,  a  consumptive  of  the 
sweat-shop,  spraying  the  garments  he  sews  by  sneezing 
or  coughing,  may  convey  to  some  delicate  lad  or  girl  in  a 
far-distant  part  of  the  country  or  in  a  wealthy  part  of 
the  city  the  disease  which  the  sweat-shop  has  given  him. 
A  virulent  cause  of  consumption  is  the  spray  discharged 
from  the  nose,  lungs,  or  mouth  of  the  consumptive 
invalid.  As  before  mentioned,  those  near  the  person 
suffering  from  tuberculosis  are  very  likely  to  contract 
the  disease.  Children  playing  about  on  the  floor,  kissing 
or  embracing  the  diseased  mother  or  father,  taking 
the  milk  from  a  tuberculosis  mother,  so  often  contract 
the  disease  that  the  mass  of  people  have  an  almost  un- 
shakable belief  that  it  is  inherited.  Eminent  physicians, 
however,  say  that  the  disease  is  not  inherited.  .  .  . 
It  is  cheaper  in  every  way  to  cure  a  consumptive  in  a 
sanatorium  than  it  is  to  let  him  die  in  a  hospital  or  in  a 
public  institution  of  some  kind,  but  to  let  him  die  in  a 
hospital  or  institution  of  whatever  kind  is  cheaper  than 
to  let  him  die  in  his  tenement.  What  we  are  doing  now 
is  just  the  wrong  thing.  .  .  .  It  is  unquestionably 
the  duty  of  society  to  care  for  the  victims  of  this  disease. 
It  is  a  social  disease.  Society  is  responsible  for  its  con- 
tinuance.    .     .     . 

[38] 


In  the  Fire  of  tlie  Heart 

"It  will  be  stamped  out  when  the  humane  work  of 
the  Tenement  House  Department  and  the  Health  De- 
partment of  this  city,  and  of  every  other  city,  is  vic- 
torious over  opponents;  when  there  is  established  in 
the  mind  of  everyone  that  vital  principle  of  an  ad- 
vanced civilization,  namely,  that  the  profits  of  individ- 
uals are  second  in  importance  to  the  life,  welfare, 
and  prosperity  of  the  great  masses  of  people.  It  will 
disappear  from  that  community  which  demands  the 
destruction  of  an  insanitary  tenement  regardless  of  in- 
convenience to  individuals  and  which  also  demands  that 
there  shall  be  no  dark  and  windowless  rooms  within  its 
boundaries  under  any  condition  whatsoever,  as  a  result  of 
any  plea,  or  as  a  favour  to  private  interests  great  or  small." 

Certain  tenements  as  well  as  workshops  become  in- 
fected with  the  disease.  We  have  heard  of  the  "Lung 
Block"  and  also  of  the  "Ink  Pot"  in  New  York,  both 
with  their  frightfully  large  numbers  of  deaths  from 
tuberculosis.  Mr.  Ernest  Poole,  in  describing  the  condi- 
tions in  this  latter  tenement,  says :  "  It  has  front  and  rear 
tenements  five  floors  high,  with  a  foul,  narrow  court 
between.  Here  live  one  hundred  and  forty  people. 
Twenty-three  are  babies.  Here  I  found  one  man  sick 
with  the  plague  in  the  front  house,  two  more  in  the  rear 
—  and  one  of  these  had  a  young  wife  and  four  children. 
Here  the  plague  lives  in  darkness  and  filth  —  filth  in 
halls,  over  walls  and  floors,  in  sinks  and  closets.  Here 
in  nine  years  alone  twenty-six  cases  have  been  reported. 
How  many  besides  these  were  kept  secret  ?  And  behind 
these  nine  years  —  how  many  cases  more  ? 

[39] 


In  the  Fire  of  tJie  Heart 
"Rooms  here  have  held  death  ready  and  waiting  for 
years.  Up  on  the  third  floor,  looking  down  into  the 
court,  is  a  room  with  two  little  closets  behind  it.  In  one  of 
these  a  blind  Scotchman  slept  and  took  the  plague  in 
'94.  His  wife  and  his  fifteen-year-old  son  both  drank, 
and  the  home  grew  squalid  as  the  tenement  itself. 
He  died  in  the  hospital.  Only  a  few  months  later 
the  plague  fastened  again.  Slowly  his  little  daughter 
grew  used  to  the  fever,  the  coughing,  the  long,  sleepless 
nights.  The  foul  court  was  her  only  outlook.  At  last 
she,  too,  died.  The  mother  and  son  then  moved  away. 
But  in  this  room  the  germs  lived  on.  They  might  all  have 
been  killed  in  a  day  by  sunlight;  they  can  live  two  years 
in  darkness.  Here  in  darkness  they  lived,  on  grimy  walls, 
in  dusky  nooks,  on  dirty  floors.  Then  one  year  later, 
in  October,  a  Jew  rented  this  same  room.  He  was  taken, 
and  died  in  the  summer.  This  room  was  rented  again 
in  the  autumn  by  a  German  and  his  wife.  She  had  the 
plague  already,  and  died.  Then  an  Irish  family  came  in. 
The  father  was  a  hard,  steady  worker,  and  loved  his 
children.  The  home  this  time  was  winning  the  fight. 
But  six  months  later  he  took  the  plague.  He  died  in  1901. 
This  is  only  the  record  of  one  room  in  seven  years. " 

Professor  Koch,  who  a  little  over  twenty-two  years  ago 
discovered  the  cause  of  tuberculosis,  says  in  an  inter- 
view on  the  subject:  "In  all  other  infectious  diseases 
we  attack  infection  at  its  source;  cases  of  small-pox, 
of  leprosy,  of  diphtheria,  of  plague,  are  isolated,  but 
cases  of  tuberculosis  in  their  last  stages,  the  most  deadly 

[40] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

stage  of  the  most  deadly  disease  of  all,  are  still  allowed 
throughout  Europe  to  spread  further  infection  broad- 
east  in  the  midst  of  their  already  destitute  families. 
This  fact  does  not  yet  seem  to  be  learned.  When  it  is, 
and  when  we  have  these  homes  for  the  hopeless  cases 
adjoining  every'-  city,  then  tuberculosis  will  pass  from 
the  midst  of  us."  Again,  he  says:  "It  is  not  cruelty  to 
isolate  these  cases;  it  is  the  truest  and  highest  kindness. " 

I  have  dwelt  at  length  upon  this  great "  White  Plague  " 
—  consumption  —  because  its  prevalence  and  its  non- 
abatement  are  so  directly  caused  by  social  and  industrial 
conditions  that  the  individual  himself  is  powerless  to 
escape,  and  which  only  a  united  public  action  can  end. 
There  are  public  spirited  and  earnest  people  in  some  of 
our  states,  however,  who  are  already  aroused  to  the  im- 
portance of  this  great,  and,  to  a  large  extent,  unnecessary 
evil,  and  who  are  already  beginning  to  put  into  operation 
agencies  that  promise  much  for  its  amelioration.  Much, 
however,  must  be  done;  and  a  great  part  must  be  along 
the  lines  of  better  social  and  industrial  conditions  under 
which  so  many  millions  of  our  people  live. 

Did  space  permit  we  could  also  consider  at  length 
the  diseases  resulting  to  workmen  from  various  types 
of  employment,  for  some  are  in  time  inevitably  health- 
breaking,  and  some  are  invariably  most  deadly.  But 
generally  for  those  who  are  striken  through  these  em- 
ployments, no  provisions  of  any  type  are  made,  and  when 
no  longer  strong  or  capable  the  worker  is  thrown  out 
upon  himself.  Unable  in  his  weakened  or  diseased  condi- 
tion to  find  other  employment,  he  many  times  becomes  a 

[41] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

public  charge.  "Parasitic"  employments,  with  no 
further  responsibilities  for  those  whose  health  they 
undermine,  are  all  too  common  in  this  day  of 
enlightenment.  The  public  must  demand  greater  pro- 
tection from  and  responsibility  on  the  part  of  these. 
Mr.  John  Graham  Brooks,  in  his  admirable  work, 
"  The  Social  Unrest,  "*  has  spoken  most  strongly  of  that 
frightful  list  of  striken  labourers  that  are  now  thrown 
back  upon  themselves  or  their  families  with  recompense 
so  uncertain  and  niggardly  as  to  shock  the  most  primi- 
tive sense  of  social  justice.  Speaking  of  what  comes  under 
the  head  of  accident  injuries  in  connection  with  the 
progress  of  German  insurance,  Mr.  Brooks  further 
says :  "  Previous  to  the  accident  insurance  in  Germany  it 
was  thought  that  there  might  be  thirty  or  forty  thousand 
injuries  due  to  machinery  that  would  be  covered  by  the 
insurance.  The  first  investigation  showed  three  times 
this  number;  when  the  investigation  became  more 
complete,  six  times  the  number  .  .  .  Most  civilized 
communities  outside  of  America  have  already  made 
the  same  acknowledgment  by  framing  new  laws  that 
mark  an  era  in  a  juster  social  legislation. " 

Switzerland  came  first  in  1881,  then  Germany, 
Austria,  Norway,  England,  France,  Italy,  and  Den- 
mark. They  have  all  taken  definite  steps  along  the  lines 
of  the  securing  of  justice  in  this  matter  of  industrial 
accidents.  The  United  States,  the  nation  above  all 
others  that  one  would  naturally  think  had  greatest  cause 
for  taking  such  a  step,  has  as  yet  done  practically  nothing. 

*  Macmillan  and  Company,  New  York  and  London 
[42] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

Undoubtedly  lack  of  regular  employment,  sickness 
or  weakness,  combined  with  the  receiving  of  a  mere  living 
wage,  which  leaves  no  opportunity  to  meet  any  emer- 
gency successfully,  is  responsible  for  the  great  propor- 
tion of  the  poverty  and  resultant  pauperism  that  is  in 
existence  in  our  own  as  well  as  in  so  many  other  coun- 
tries to-day.  The  uncertainty  and  darkness  that  the 
combination  brings  into  the  lives  of  millions  of  other- 
wise strong,  honest,  hard-working,  and  withal  deserving, 
people,  is  almost  indescribable.  We  make  it  hard  for 
many  a  man  to  be  honest  and  independent  and  self- 
respecting,  and  when  with  all  his  magnificent  struggles 
he  eventually  goes  under,  we  throw  the  role  of  the 
criminal  or  the  pauper  upon  him  and  those  dependent 
on  him. 

We  have  the  rush  and  strain  in  so  many  lines  of  work, 
the  boom  and  then  depression,  men  rushed  and  driven 
and  then  no  work.  There  is  no  time  for  culture  and  ad- 
vancement while  the  rush  and  strain  is  on,  and  the 
uncertainty  of  existence  —  to  meet  one's  honest  obliga- 
tions, and  many  times  the  search  for  work  when  un- 
employment comes,  leaves  no  time  for  culture  or  ad- 
vancement, or  even  for  the  normal  enjoyment  of  life, 
which  should  be  in  any  enlightened  country  at  least 
the  portion  of  every  endeavour.  I  think  one  of  the  saddest 
and  most  unjust  features  of  our  present  day  life  is  the 
contemplation  of  the  thousands  of  thousands  who  are 
working  from  early  to  late  year  after  year  merely  to  get 
bread  and  clothing  and  shelter  for  the  next  day's  work  — 
nothing  more,  lives  void  of  all  art,  learning,  rest,  or  hope. 

[43] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

Think  what  a  loss  it  means  to  even  an  average  standard 
of  citizenship.  Think  what  it  means  for  the  future. 
Think  what  a  thing  human  life  on  this  basis  has 
become,  compared  to  what  it  might  and  should  be. 

I  have  an  infinite  respect  for  that  great  body  of  labour 
striving  in  the  face  of  such  great  odds  to  remain  diligent, 
honest,  self-sustaining,  fighting  continually  to  retain 
their  places  as  self-supporting  members  of  the  commun- 
ity, and  to  give  whatever  opportunities  they  are  capable 
of  giving  to  their  children  —  this  vast  army  of  heroes, 
heroes  in  the  common  life,  the  highest  type  there  is. 
Many  of  them,  however,  on  account  of  sometimes 
shabby  clothes  and  a  less  prosperous  appearance,  are 
looked  down  upon  by  many  more  well-to-do  and  better 
kept,  but  who  in  a  similar  test  would  fall  far  below  them 
in  the  measure  of  heroism.  It  is  of  this  great  army  that 
Mr.  Hunter  speaks  as  follows:  "In  the  same  cities  and, 
indeed,  everywhere,  there  are  great  districts  of  people 
who  are  up  before  dawn,  who  wash,  dress,  and  eat 
breakfast,  kiss  wives  and  children,  and  hurry  away  to 
work  or  to  seek  work.  The  world  rests  upon  their 
shoulders;  it  moves  by  their  muscle;  everything  would 
stop  if,  for  any  reason,  they  should  decide  not  to  go  into 
the  fields  and  factories  and  mines.  But  the  world  is  so 
organized  that  they  gain  enough  to  live  upon  only  when 
they  work;  should  they  cease,  they  are  in  destitution  and 
hunger.  The  more  fortunate  of  the  labourers  are  but  a 
few  weeks  from  actual  distress  when  the  machines  are 
stopped.  Upon  the  unskilled  masses  want  is  constantly 
pressing.  As  soon  as  employment  ceases,  suffering  stares 
[44] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

them  in  the  face.  They  are  the  actual  producers  of 
wealth,  who  have  no  home  nor  any  bit  of  soil  which 
they  may  call  their  own.  They  are  the  millions  who 
possess  no  tools  and  can  work  only  by  permission  of 
another.  In  the  main,  they  live  miserably,  they  know 
not  why.  They  work  sore,  yet  gain  nothing.  They  know 
the  meaning  of  hunger  and  the  dread  of  want.  They  love 
their  wives  and  children.  They  try  to  retain  their  self- 
respect.  They  have  some  ambition.  They  give  to  neigh- 
bours in  need,  yet  they  are  themselves  the  actual  chil- 
dren of  poverty.  .  .  .  The  necessities  for  maintaining 
physical  efficiency  are  very  different  from  those  essential 
to  mere  living.  A  Hottentot,  a  Lazzarone,  or  a  vagrant 
may  live  well  enough  on  little  or  nothing,  because  he 
does  not  spend  himself.  The  modem  workman  demands 
a  far  higher  standard  of  living  in  order  to  keep  pace  with 
intense  industrial  life.  Physical  efficiency,  not  mere  ex- 
istence, is  to  him  vital.  His  necessities  are  necessities! 
It  is  a  terrible  word,  for  "Necessity's  sharp  pinch"  is 
like  that  of  a  steel  vise.  There  is  no  give  to  it.  Necessity 
is  like  flint  or  granite.  It  is  irresistible.  It  cannot  be 
shuffled  with  nor  altered.  If  physical  efficiency  is  an 
absolute  and  vital  necessity  to  the  workman,  so  to  him 
are  certain  necessities  for  maintaining  that  physical 
efficiency.  The  fundamental  thing  in  all  this  is  that 
every  workman  who  is  expected  by  society  to  remain 
independent  of  public  relief  and  capable  of  self-support 
must  be  guaranteed,  in  so  far  as  that  is  possible,  an 
opportunity  for  obtaining  those  necessaries  essential 
to  physical  efficiency.  Such  a  standard  is  the  basis  of 

[45] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

almost  everything;  for,  unless  men  can  retain  their 
physical  efficiency,  they  must  degenerate.  To  continue 
in  poverty  for  any  long  period  means  in  the  end  the  loss 
of  the  power  of  doing  work,  and  to  be  unable  to  work 
means  in  the  end  pauperism.  " 

There  is  a  very  direct  connection  between  uncertainty 
of  employment  and  increased  vagrancy  and  increased 
crime,  especially  theft  and  those  things  pertaining 
thereto.  This  is  always  noted  in  connection  with  any 
unusual  industrial  depression,  and  also  in  lesser  degree 
in  connection  with  the  closing  down  of  any  particular 
work  or  works.  We  allow  to  be  built  up  an  economic  and 
industrial  system  that  makes  it  hard  and  next  to  im- 
possible for  a  man  to  be  honest,  self-supporting,  and 
therefore  self-respecting,  and  then  punish  him  for  it. 

Several  years  ago,  the  case  of  a  workman  and  his 
connection  with  the  Associated  Charities  in  Boston 
came  under  my  observation.  He  was  a  strong,  splendid 
type  of  man,  driver  of  a  team  in  connection  with  one 
of  the  large  lumber  firms.  One  day  in  handling  a  load 
of  heavy  timbers,  through  some  mischance,  his  shoulder 
was  dislocated  and  he  was  laid  up  for  some  weeks.  His 
family  consisted  of  a  wife  and  three  children,  one  of 
them  a  babe.  They  lived  in  three  neatly  kept  small 
rooms  in  a  section  of  low-priced  tenements.  As  soon  as 
his  little  reserve  power  was  exhausted,  in  order  to  keep 
above  want,  they  had  to  apply  for  aid  to  the  Charity 
Organization.  When  he  was  finally  capable  of  resuming 
work,  it  was  found  that  his  place  had  been  filled  by 
another.  I  have  known  this  man  to  get  up  and  be  out  of 
[46] 


In  the  Fire  of  tJw  Heart 

his  house  long  before  light,  and  with  practically  nothing 
for  breakfast,  regularly  day  after  day  for  several  weeks, 
in  his  vain  endeavour  to  find  work.  Wherever  he  could 
get  track  of  any  possibility  of  work,  he  was  there  early 
among  those  seeking  the  same.  He  was  not  a  shiftless 
man,  caring  little  whether  he  had  work  or  not,  but  a 
strong,  sober,  earnest  man,  who  felt  the  responsibility 
of  the  family  dependent  upon  him.  This  weary,  fruitless 
search  for  work,  is  a  tale  that  is  repeated  over  and 
over  every  day  in  any  large  centre. 

Sometime  ago  it  was  my  privilege  to  sit  with  a  friend, 
a  Municipal  Judge  in  the  Borough  of  Brooklyn,  as  he 
despatched  his  daily  round  of  cases.  There  were  num- 
bers whose  troubles  could  be  traced  directly  to  a  lack 
of  regular  employment.  Among  them  was  an  unusually 
strong,  splendid  looking  man,  of  about  middle  age,  a 
blacksmith  by  trade.  His  work  had  been  chiefly  in  con- 
nection with  the  handling  the  large  forge  pieces  that 
form  part  of  the  work  of  various  machine-shops. 
Through  some  shifting  of  forces  —  he  was  not  a  man 
who  drank  —  he  was  thrown  out  of  work.  The  weary, 
fruitless  search  for  work  and  the  increasing  want  — 
notwithstanding  his  splendid  physical  build  he  was  a 
sensitive  man  —  enabled  depression  finally  to  take  strong 
hold  of  him,  and  after  struggling  with  this  for  some  days 
he  finally  one  evening  got  his  bottle  of  poison  and  quietly 
lay  down  on  the  kitchen  floor  to  end  it  all.  He  was 
found  before  the  end  came,  was  resuscitated,  and  the 
next  day  was  taken  before  the  Municipal  Judge  on  the 
charge  of  attempted  suicide.  It  was  indeed  pathetic  to 
[47] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
see  this  splendid  looking  man,  dejection  and  quiet 
written  in  every  movement  and  on  every  feature,  care- 
less now  as  to  what  disposition  would  be  made  of  him, 
having  no  choice  now  as  to  whether  it  was  confinement  or 
freedom.  Fortunately  he  was  before  a  Justice  of  unusual 
type,  one  who  used  his  office  primarily  for  the  good  he 
could  do  to  that  weary  and  never  ending  round  of  fellow 
creatures  that  came  before  him  daily.  That  same  day 
agencies  were  put  into  operation  to  help  the  man  find 
work  —  the  only  thing  needed  —  and  thus  restore  him 
as  nearly  as  possible  to  his  family  and  to  his  former 
independent  position. 

How  frequently  men  drop  on  the  streets  of  the  cities 
of  this,  in  many  respects,  great  nation,  from  hunger,  in 
addition  to  that  greater  number  of  men  and  women 
who  suffer  quietly  and  unknown  to  the  world,  in  a 
country  where  there  is  plenty  for  all  a  thousand  times 
over.  They  prefer  hunger  and  starvation  to  theft  or 
begging,  and  thousands  upon  thousands  prefer  it  to 
becoming  a  pauper.  Such  are  indeed  heroes  of  the  high- 
est mould. 

We  must  learn  that  the  duty  of  our  industries  is  not 
done  with  the  payment  of  just  a  living  wage.  Compensa- 
tion must  be  adequate  to  enable  something  to  be  laid 
by  for  the  emergency  that  comes  to  every  individual 
and  to  every  family. 

There  is  a  necessary  and  there  is  an  unnecessary 

poverty.  The  former  is  that  that  comes  about  through 

intemperance,   shiftlessness,   laziness,   depravity.    This 

I  suppose  will  always  be  with  us.  There  is  no  power  that 

[48] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

can  shield  men  or  women  from  the  penalties  or  the 
inevitable  results  of  the  violation  of  natural  and  moral 
laws.  There  is  on  the  other  hand,  and  it  is  unhappily 
the  very  great  portion  of  it  all,  an  unnecessary  poverty. 
The  great  bulk  of  the  vast  amount  of  poverty  in  the 
country  to-day,  as  well  as  that  in  every  other  country 
is  of  this  unnecessary  type.  It  results  through  no  fault 
of  the  individual,  in  fact  through  agencies  that  the  in- 
dividual as  such  cannot  cope  with  and  cannot  escape. 
It  is  due  to  certain  social  and  industrial  evils  and  wrongs 
that  a  truly  great  or  even  self-respecting  nation  cannot 
continue  to  permit.  We  must  find  and  put  an  end  to  the 
causes  that  deliberately  make  paupers  out  of  the 
citizens  of  a  great  and  free  nation,  and  then  turn  around 
and  take  care  of  them  out  of  the  public  funds. 

An  industrial  system  that  takes  out  of  a  man  all  the 
vitality  and  energy  and  good  there  is  in  him  and  then 
throws  him  out  and  onto  the  public  as  a  public  charge, 
is  not  of  a  high  order,  and  as  it  is  not  necessary  it  cer- 
tainly cannot  much  longer  be  permitted.  We  must 
make  provisions  for  old  age.  When  vast  numbers  are 
receiving  merely,  and  still  other  vast  numbers  not  even, 
a  living  wage,  and  can  scarcely  keep  even  with  the  daily 
demands  of  life,  how  then,  broken  and  helpless  —  many 
long  before  their  time  —  can  they  expect  to  live,  self- 
supporting,  and  in  even  the  crudest  form  of  comfort, 
in  their  later  years.  We  must  learn  from  Germany  and 
other  countries,  and  take  up  the  matter  of  old  age 
pensions.  We  must  make  provisions  for  old  age  and  for 
the  helpless  outside  of  pauperism,  this  in  addition  to  a 
[49] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

fairer  living  wage.  A  noted  writer  has  recently  said  that 
the  whole  matter  resolves  itself  into  the  matter  of  fair 
wages  and  regular  employment.  Then  too  we  must 
stop  killing  as  well  as  injuring  the  breadwinners  in  such 
wholesale  numbers,  or  if  not,  then  industry  must  be 
compelled  to  make  just  and  full  and  quick  recompense 
to  those  that  through  this  agency  become  dependents. 
Prof.  Edward  D.  Jones,  speaking  of  the  fairer  wage, 
says :  "  The  necessity  for  higher  wages  is  based  upon  the 
observation  that,  in  the  purchase  and  sale  of  labour 
upon  the  market,  all  the  necessary  and  legitimate  costs 
of  producing  labour  are  not  provided  for  in  the  wages 
received.  Such  transactions  are  not  complete  economi- 
cally, and  do  not  meet  the  claims  of  social  justice. 
Fair  wages  must  include  more  than  enough  to  support 
the  labourer  while  working,  and  must  cover  compensa- 
tion for  seasons  of  idleness  due  to  sickness,  old  age, 
youth,  lack  of  work,  or  other  causes  beyond  the  control 
of  the   labourer." 

We  are  still  considering  the  actual  conditions  that 
exist  in  a  country  supposedly  very  great  and  uniformly 
prosperous.  In  the  United  States  to-day  there  are  over 
four  million  paupers.  The  average  person  would  scarcely 
believe  that  in  New  York  in  the  year  1897  over  29 
per  cent  of  the  people  and  in  1899  over  24  per 
cent  of  the  people  found  it  necessary  to  apply 
for  relief.  And  yet,  these  figures  given  by  the  State 
Board  do  not  include  the  relief  rendered  by  the  trade 
unions,  various  small  clubs,  circles,  and  committees, 
nor  the  relief  given  by  individuals.   During  the  year  1903 

[50] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

in  Boston,  more  than  20  per  cent  of  the  inhabitants 
were  rendered  aid  by  the  public  authorities  alone,  and 
in  addition  to  these  it  is  estimated  that  during  that  year 
336,000  persons  were  aided  in  private  institutions,  such 
as  hospitals,  dispensaries,  asylums,  etc.,  and  these  are  not, 
except  by  duplications,  contained  in  the  above  figures. 
Estimating  that  these  figures  are  correct  as  published, 
it  will  be  found  that  the  number  of  people  in  the  State 
of  New  York  in  distress  and  requiring  aid  in  1897,  and 
the  number  in  Boston  in  1903  equalled  proportionately 
the  number  of  those  in  poverty  in  London. 

The  Charity  Organization  Society  in  New  York 
finds  that  from  43  to  52  per  cent  of  all  applica- 
tions for  aid  need  work  rather  than  relief.  The 
United  Hebrew  Charities  in  the  same  city  say  the  dis- 
tress and  poverty  among  their  people  is  due  mainly 
to  the  inability  to  find  opportunities  to  become  self- 
supporting.  This  applies  not  only  to  New  York,  but 
equally  well  to  Chicago  and  to  various  other  cities. 
There  is  then  a  direct  connection  between  irregularity 
or  lack  of  employment  and  pauperism,  the  same  as 
there  is  a  very  direct  connection  between  irregularity 
or  lack  of  work  and  vagrancy.  If  so  large  a  proportion 
of  those  applying  for  aid  need  work  rather  than  relief, 
nearly  or  practically  one  half,  then  it  certainly  is  en- 
cumbent upon  society  to  provided  a  solution  of  the 
problem.  Want  and  a  lack  of  regular  employment 
precede  both  poverty  and  vagrancy  more  often  than 
they  follow  it. 

There  is  also  a  very  direct  connection  between  want 
[51] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

and  an  adequate  means  to  supply  it  and  drunkenness. 
It  is  the  cheerless,  dreary  condition  in  men's  lives,  in 
the  lives  of  both  men  and  women,  that  is  responsible 
for  the  great  bulk  of  intemperance  that  we  find.  Under- 
fed, underclothed,  cold  without  sufficient  heat,  no  hope, 
despondency,  this  is  the  chief  road  to  intemperance  and 
degeneracy.  Were  we  to  know  all  the  facts  we  would 
find  that  drink  precedes  but  rarely.  Poverty  precedes 
more  often  than  it  follows.  The  great  evil  of  intemper- 
ance which  is  the  bane  in  the  lives  of  such  vast  numbers 
of  working  people  in  this  country,  as  in  England,  and 
every  country  where  it  has  reached  similar  proportions, 
is  to  a  vast  extent  due  to  the  dreary  and  hard  and  under- 
fed and  hopeless  conditions  in  so  many  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  lives.  Cold  without  sufficient  heat,  a 
desire  to  get  away  from,  to  forget  the  dull,  weary  hope- 
lessness. Wise,  indeed,  was  the  Bishop  of  the  English 
Church  when  he  said,  "  If  I  lived  in  the  slums  I  should 
be  a  drunkard,  too." 

Dr.  Henry  van  Dyke,  preaching  the  baccalaureate 
sermon  at  one  of  our  leading  universities  some  time  ago, 
gave  utterance  to  this  same  great  truth  when  he  said: 
"  There  are  monstrous  evils  and  vices  in  society.  Let 
intemperance  be  for  us  the  type  of  all,  because  so  many 
of  the  others  are  its  children.  Drunkenness  ruins  more 
homes  and  wrecks  more  fives  than  war.  How  shall  we 
oppose  it  ?  I  do  not  say  that  we  shall  not  pass  resolutions 
and  make  laws  against  it.  But  I  do  say  that  we  can  never 
really  conquer  the  evil  in  this  way.  The  stronghold  of 
intemperance  lies  in  the  vacancy  and  despair  of  men 's 
[52] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

minds.  The  way  to  attack  it  is  to  make  the  sober  life 
beautiful  and  happy  and  full  of  interest. "  But  the  lives 
of  this  vast  army  of  men  and  women  that  we  are  con- 
sidering, those  continually  in  or  continually  face  to 
face  with  want,  are  not  beautiful,  neither  are  they  happy 
nor  full  of  interest.  They  should  be;  they  could  be. 

Mr.  Arthur  W.  Milbury,  Secretary  of  the  Industrial 
Christian  Alliance,  has  said :  "  I  have  had  a  long  and  in- 
timate personal  experience  with  the  class  of  men  referred 
to,  and  I  give  it  unhesitatingly  as  my  testimony  that 
not  many  men  are  '  lazy  '  in  the  sense  in  which  this  word 
is  commonly  used.  I  have  dealt  with  thousands  of  such 
men  and  have  almost  invariably  found  them  willing  and 
anxious  to  work.  I  know  that  a  great  many  people  en- 
gaged in  charitable  enterprises  have  much  to  say  about 
lazy  people,  but  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  it  is  not  so 
much  laziness  that  is  at  fault  as  the  efforts  so  many  of  us 
make  to  put  square  pegs  in  round  holes.  All  men  are 
not  born  with  the  same  energy  and  the  same  intelligence, 
and  what  might  be  called  laziness  in  me  might  be  called 
superhuman  energy  in  other  men.  In  this  institution, 
we  do  not  put  at  chopping  wood  or  shoveling  coal,  if 
we  can  possibly  help  it,  the  man  whose  only  occupation 
in  life  has  been  that  of  bookkeeper  or  clerk  and  who 
has  never  had  any  hard  physical  labour.  We  endeavour, 
as  far  as  possible,  to  put  men  at  the  work  they  are  best 
fitted  for.  Perhaps  this  is  one  reason  why  our  experience 
leads  us  not  to  consider  laziness  as  prevalent  a  vice  as 
some    other   people. " 

The  conditions  that  surround  the  lives  of  the  children 
[53] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

of  any  country,  especially  the  play-life,  constitute  a 
very  great  factor  in  determining  the  immediate  future 
conditions  of  that  country.  In  the  early  days  of  the 
American  nation  the  fields,  and  all  that  this  conveys, 
were  the  playgrounds  of  the  children.  As  the  city  began 
and  grew  the  Common  was  given  them  in  place  of  the 
fields;  this  was  succeeded  many  times  by  the  small 
yard  of  the  home.  But  as  the  cities  have  grown  and  land 
has  become  more  valuable,  and  population  denser  and 
continually  denser,  the  children  have  been  gradually 
pushed  out  into  the  streets,  until  in  Greater  New  York 
for  example,  the  street  and  all  that  that  means  is  the 
chief  playground  for  not  less  than  half  a  million  children. 
Tins  is  also  true,  to  a  greater  or  less  extent,  of  certain 
portions  of  every  great  city  in  the  country, —  the  street 
with  its  noises  and  all  of  its  dangers,  its  dust  and  its 
dirt,  and  many  times  its  stifling  atmosphere,  as  well  as 
all  of  its  moral  dangers,  is  the  playground  of  at  least 
seven  million  of  our  children  to-day.  After  saying  that, 
"The  younger  criminals  seem  to  come  almost  exclu- 
sively from  the  worst  tenement-house  districts,"  an 
eminent  authority  even  many  years  ago  gave  before  a 
New  York  Legislative  Committee,  testimony  as  follows : 
"By  far  the  largest  part,  80  per  cent  at  least,  of 
crimes  against  property  and  against  the  person  are  per- 
petrated by  individuals  who  have  either  lost  connection 
with  home  life,  or  never  had  any,  or  whose  homes  have 
ceased  to  be  sufficiently  separate,  decent,  and  desirable 
to  afford  what  was  regarded  as  ordinary  wholesome 
influences  of  home  and  family. " 
[54] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

It  is  the  life  in  the  streets  of  the  large  city  where  the 
needs  of  the  children  seem  to  have  been  so  generally 
forgotten,  that  develops  as  Mr.  Jacob  A.  Riis  has  so 
authoritatively  said,  "dislike  of  regular  work,  physical 
incapability  of  sustained  effort,  misdirected  love  of 
adventure,  gambling  propensities,  absence  of  energy, 
and  untrained  will,  carelessness  of  the  happiness  of 
others. " 

Such  are  the  baneful  influences  that  surround 
the  lives  of  these  almost  unbelievably  large  numbers 
of  our  quickly  coming  men  and  women,  a  number  so 
large  as  soon  to  constitute  the  determining  factor  in 
the  nation's  life. 

For  one  to  realize  that  there  are  hungry  people,  and 
even  among  the  children,  who  especially  need  proper 
and  sufficient  nourishment  to  insure  fully  developed 
and  enduring  bodies  as  well  as  brains,  to  realize  that 
there  are  the  hungry  and  the  chronically  hungry,  re- 
sulting from  poverty,  in  a  country  of  such  supposedly 
universal  prosperity,  is  at  first  almost  startling.  It  was 
estimated  during  a  recent  winter  —  at  a  period  of  more 
than  ordinarily  average  prosperity  that  there  were  more 
than  seventy  thousand  children  in  New  York  City  who 
arrived  at  school  hungry.  I  have  seen  attempts  made 
to  deny  this,  but  so  far  there  have  been  no  successful 
ones.  When  asked  his  opinion  as  to  the  correctness  of 
this  statement  the  City  Superintendent  of  Schools  said: 
"With  regard  to  Mr.  Hunter's  statement,  I  beg  leave 
to  say  that  a  statement  of  this  kind  must  necessarily 

[55] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

be  an  estimate  and  only  approximately  correct.  Mr. 
Hunter,  however,  has  had  unusual  opportunities  for 
forming  a  judgment  in  this  matter  and  I  should  think 
that  he  would  be  more  likely  to  underestimate  than  to 
overestimate  the  number. "  It  is  the  opinion  of  the 
Superintendent  himself,  that  there  are  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  children  in  the  city  schools  who  cannot 
study  because  they  are  always  hungry.  Commenting 
upon  this  same  matter  at  about  that  time,  an  editorial  in 
one  of  our  most  influential  New  York  daily  papers  said : 
"  The  fact  that  seventy  thousand  children  go  to  school 
hungry  is  established.  .  .  .  They  say  the  people 
of  England  are  deteriorating  because  many  of  them  live 
in  a  constant  state  of  half-starvation.  ...  If 
conditions  are  not  changed,  the  next  five  years  will  find 
the  number  of  half-starved  children  in  New  York 
doubled.  These  conditions  will  put  100,000  children  in 
Chicago  on  half  rations,  and  they  will  create  a  starving 
population  in  every  city  of  this  marvelously  prosperous 
country.  .  .  .  It  is  not  a  part  of  the  common  lot 
of  life.  There  is  no  excuse  for  anyone  starving  in  the 
United  States.  Destitution  is  a  removable  calamity.  It 
is  a  political  and  economic  disease.  A  correct  system  of 
government  and  a  correct  enforcement  of  proper  laws 
will  remove  it. "  In  addition  to  this  army  of  underfed 
children  in  our  schools,  there  are  undoubtedly  very 
large  numbers  of  the  underfed  among  those  who  are 
not  in  the  schools  at  all. 

The  number  of  children  not  in  our  schools  is  perhaps 
much  larger  than  the  average  person  has  any  conception 

[56] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

of.  A  careful  estimate  in  connection  with  New  York 
City,  shows  that  fourteen  out  of  every  hundred  of  all 
children  of  eleven  and  twelve  years  of  age,  over  twenty- 
five  out  of  every  hundred  of  all  children  of  thirteen 
years,  and  more  than  fifty  out  of  every  hundred  children 
of  fourteen  years  of  age  are  not  in  attendance  at  the 
public  schools.  I  have  no  facts  of  a  similar  nature  that 
pertain  to  other  cities,  before  me,  but  I  dare  say  that 
in  some  cases  at  least,  perhaps  many,  the  numbers 
would  be  quite  as  large. 

Our  modern  life  is  becoming  so  intense,  and  the  strug- 
gle for  existence  is  becoming,  especially  in  some  centres, 
so  keen  and  so  sharp,  that  no  one  growing  into  manhood 
aid  womanhood  can  afford  to  enter  upon  the  stage  of 
activity  in  anything  but  a  thoroughly  first-class  and 
sound  condition,  both  mentally  and  physically.  Each 
should  have  an  equipment  of  only  the  very  best  in  a 
country  supposed  to  be  among  the  best.  Nevertheless 
there  are  at  this  present  hour  over  1,700,000  boys  and 
girls  under  fifteen  years  of  age  at  work  in  our  mills  and 
our  mines  and  various  industrial  establishments  and 
works  of  all  types.  At  this  point  space  does  not  permit 
of  any  enumeration  of  the  conditions  under  which  vast 
numbers  of  these  children  of  from  five  to  fifteen  years 
of  age  are  working,  nor  any  detailed  enumeration  of  the 
broken  condition  of  so  many  of  them  so  long  before 
their  time,  sometimes  even  before  they  have  entered 
upon  young  manhood  and  womanhood. 

The  cotton  mills  of  the  South,  many  owned  or  con- 
trolled by  wealthy  Northern  capitalists,  have  of  recent 
[57] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

years  brought  about  a  condition  of  child  slavery  that 
was  scarcely  surpassed  by  a  similar  condition  in  England 
during  its  darkest  period  of  child  labour  so  many,  many 
years  ago.  The  greed  for  gain  when  it  once  takes 
possession  of  a  man  is  never  satisfied,  and  the  only 
way  many  times  to  protect  the  helpless  from  the  brute 
for  society  itself  to  stretch  forth  its  strong  mandatory 
arm. 

In  addition  to  the  almost  unspeakable  evils  resulting 
to  the  child  himself  and  later  to  the  man  and  woman, 
is  the  competition  that  this  army  of  over  1,700,000  child 
workers  throws  out  against  adult  labour,  and  especially 
is  this  a  matter  of  no  small  import  when  there  are  con- 
tinually such  large  numbers  of  men  and  women  out  of 
employment  as  we  have  already  noted.  Greater  profits 
is  the  one  and  practically  absolute  cause,  for  in  this  age 
of  modern  machinery  the  children  can  many  times  be 
hired  for  a  third  of  the  man's  normal  wage. 

In  view  of  the  facts  presented  in  that  much  discussed 
and  very  suggestive  and  valuable  book,  "The  Present 
Distribution  of  Wealth  in  the  United  States, "  published 
sometime  ago,  by  Mr.  Charles  B.  Spahr,  we  can  scarcely 
cease  wondering  that  our  Federal  Bureaus  have  not 
even  before  this  made  an  effort  to  find  the  present  drift 
of  matters  in  this  respect  in  the  country.  Mr.  Spahr's 
findings  revealed  the  fact  that  even  so  far  back  as  1890, 
considerably  over  one-third  of  the  families  in  the  United 
States,  or  41  per  cent,  are  entirely  propertyless :  that 
seven-eighths  of  the  families  hold  but  one-eighth 
of  the  national  wealth:  and    that    on  the  other   hand, 

[58] 


In  the  Fire  oj  the  Heart 

one  per  cent  of  the  families  own  more  than  the  entire 
remaining  99  per  cent. 

Another  suggestive  way  of  presenting  the  matter  is 
that  the  "wealthy"  and  "well-to-do"  classes,  that  is, 
1,500,000  families  hold  in  wealth  over  $56,000,000,000, 
while  the  remaining  "middle"  and  "poorer"  classes, 
that  is,  11,000,000  families,  own  but  $9,000,000,000, 
and  of  course,  in  this  latter  number  of  families  are  not 
included  the  41  per  cent  of  the  families  that  are 
entirely  property  less,  which,  as  is  apparent,  would 
greatly  swell  the  inequality. 

Other  estimates  including  those  of  Mr.  George  K. 
Holmes,  an  expert  statistician  employed  on  the  census, 
revealed  facts  of  a  very  similar  nature. 

These  are  indeed  not  only  significant  but  most 
portentous  facts,  and  if  the  above  are  the  facts  as  far 
back  as  1890,  they  have  undoubtedly  been  accentuated 
with  great  force  since  then,  for  there  has  been  no  decade 
in  our  entire  history  in  which  so  many  great  private 
fortunes  have  been  built  up  or  have  been  added  so 
powerfully  to  as  that  between  1890  and  1900,  and  since. 
A  well-known  man  in  the  financial  world  in  reviewing 
some  of  our  present  day  conditions  has  recently  made  a 
statement  to  the  effect  that  it  is  only  a  matter  of  simple 
mathematics  to  ascertain  the  day,  and  that  only  a  few 
years  away,  when  ten  men  will  be  practically  owners  of 
the  United  States.  He  has  indeed  much  basis,  in  view 
of  present  conditions  and  the  present  trend  of  matters, 
for  this  statement. 

The  fact  of  the  matter  is  that  in  face  of  the  great  and 
[59] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

unprecedented  growth  of  wealth  in  the  United  States, 
resulting  in  large  measure  from  its  youth  and  wonderful 
natural  resources  and  opportunities,  the  increase  has 
been  so  unequal  that  the  vast  millions  have  flowed  into 
the  pockets  of  the  few,  while  the  few  millions  have  gone 
to  the  lot  of  the  many.  The  rich  have  grown  richer  at  a 
rate  and  to  a  degree  that  is  almost  astounding,  and 
while  it  is  not  true  that  the  poor  have  on  the  whole  grown 
poorer,  it  is  true  that  the  increase  going  to  their  lot  has 
been  so  exceedingly  small  in  comparison  —  in  some 
cases  not  even  sufficient  to  be  noted  at  all  —  that  prac- 
tically the  same  effect  has  come  about.  In  other  words 
the  increase  in  general  prosperity  and  of  those  at  the 
upper  end  has  been  out  of  all  proportion  to  that  of  the 
great  labouring  and  middle  class.  The  masses  of  the 
people  are  not  getting  their  just  relative  increase.  Were 
it  not  at  the  risk  of  dealing  too  much  with  statistics  and 
figures,  it  would  be  most  interesting  to  calculate  and 
consider  the  total  amount  of  wealth  created  each  year 
or  each  decade,  and  the  amount  of  it  that  actually  goes 
to  the  great  mass  of  the  producers  of  that  wealth. 

A  Fabian  Tract  says  that  there  are  about  one  million 
rich  men  in  England  who  do  nothing,  hence  live  on  the 
labour  of  others.  The  vast  tracts  of  land  that  in  great 
estates,  sometimes  even  in  large  cities  (over  600  acres 
in  the  heart  of  London  is  held  by  a  single  individual), 
that  are  held  by  rich  or  titled  families,  and  thus  kept 
away  from  the  people  to  whom  the  land  should  rightly 
belong  or  for  whose  benefit  it  should  be  used,  is  un- 
doubtedly one  of  the  great  causes  of  the  great  inequality 

[60] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

of  conditions  in  Great  Britain.  I  have  passed  partly  by 
one  estate  in  North  Britain,  eighteen  miles  wide  and  a 
hundred  miles  long.  There  are  numerous  estates  of 
vast  numbers  of  square  miles  each,  even  comprising 
whole  villages  where  no  single  dweller  owns  the  house 
in  which  he  lives,  nor  can  he  even  drive  a  nail  in  it 
without    permission. 

In  view  of  the  above  facts  it  is  interesting  to  note 
the  following,  a  conversation  between  the  well-known 
author  of  that  widely  circulated  little  book,  "Merrie 
England,"  and  one  of  the  subjects,  a  working-man 
subject,  of  the  King.  The  title  of  the  chapter  in  which 
it  occurs  is,  "Who  Makes  the  Wealth,  and  Who  Gets 
It?" 

"Now,  John,  what  are  the  evils  of  which  we  com- 
plain ?  Lowness  of  wages,  length  of  working  hours,  un- 
certainty of  employment,  insecurity  of  the  future,  low 
standards  of  public  health  and  morality,  prevalence  of 
pauperism  and  crime,  and  the  existence  of  false  ideals 
of  life. 

"  I  will  give  you  a  few  examples  of  the  things  I  mean. 
It  is  estimated  that  in  this  country,  with  its  population 
of  thirty-six  millions,  there  are  generally  about  700,000 
men  out  of  work.  There  are  about  800,000  paupers. 
Of  every  thousand  persons  who  die  in  Merrie  England 
over  nine  hundred  die  without  leaving  any  property 
at  all.  About  eight  millions  of  people  exist  always  on 
the  borders  of  destitution.  About  twenty  millions  are 
poor.  More  than  half  the  national  income  belongs  to 
about    ten    thousand    people.    About    thirty-thousand 

[61] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

people  own  fifty-five  fifty-sixths  of  the  land  and  capital 
of  the  kingdom,  but  of  thirty-six  millions  of  people  only 
one  and  one-half  millions  get  above  $15  a  week.  The 
average  income  per  head  of  the  working  classes  is  about 
$85  a  year,  or  less  than  twenty-five  cents  a  day.  There 
are  millions  of  our  people  working  under  conditions 
and  living  in  homes  that  are  simply  disgraceful.  The 
sum  of  crime,  vice,  drunkenness,  gambling,  prostitu- 
tion, idleness,  ignorance,  want,  disease,  and  death  is 
appalling.  .  .  .  To  what  are  the  above  evils  due  ? 
They  are  due  to  the  unequal  distribution  of  wealth,  and 
to  the  absence  of  justice  and  order  from  our  society. 

"Political  orators  and  newspaper  editors  are  very 
fond  of  talking  to  you  about  '  your  country.'  Now,  Mr. 
Smith,  it  is  a  hard  practical  fact  that  you  have  not  got 
any  country.  The  British  Islands  do  not  belong  to  the 
British  people;  they  belong  to  a  few  thousands  —  cer- 
tainly not  half  a  million  —  of  rich  men.  " 

The  poverty  and  wretched  conditions  in  London  and 
other  large  centres  in  Great  Britain  is  indeed  very 
great  in  its  proportions,  but  we  in  the  United  States  are 
rapidly  approaching  it  in  many  centres,  and  in  some, 
according  to  all  available  facts  and  statistics,  we  have 
reached  it  already.  Sometime  ago  a  well-known  English 
philanthropist  and  sociologist,  who  was  travelling  in 
this  country  studying  the  conditions  of  the  working 
classes,  publicly  declared  while  in  Washington,  as  the 
result  of  his  investigations  that  there  are  worse  places 
in  that  city  than  the  worst  quarters  of  London. 

Said  Jacob  A.  Riis :     "  I  am  not  easily  discouraged. 
[62] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
But  I  confess  I  was  surprised  by  the  sights  I  have  seen 
in  the  national  capital.  You  people  of  Washington  have 
alley  after  alley  filled  with   hidden    people  whom  you 
don't  know.  There  are  298  such  alleys. 

"  They  tell  me  the  death  rate  among  the  negro  babies 
born  in  these  alleys  is  475  out  of  a  thousand  before  they 
grow  to  be  one  year  old.  Nearly  one-half!  Nowhere  I 
have  ever  been  in  the  civilized  world  have  I  ever  seen 
such  a  thing  as  that.  "* 

The  luxury  on  the  one  hand  and  the  poverty  on  the 
other,  and  it  has  been  the  history  of  the  world  that 
where  the  former  has  grown  great  the  latter  has  grown 
great  also  and  as  a  consequence,  that  we  find  in  the 
American  nation  to-day,  and  within  a  period  so  com- 
paratively short,  is  simply  enormous  in  its  proportions. 
While  in  this  country  we  are  not  labouring  under  the 
caste  system  that  exists  in  England, and  has  there  become 
almost  as  fixed  and  pronounced  as  it  has  been  for  untold 
generations  in  India  for  example,we  are  already  feeling 
a  similar  bearing  and  power  on  the  part  of  the  very  rich, 
both  as  families  and  as  individuals,  and  some  such  state 
is  now  as  for  some  time  past  it  has  been,  in  process  of 
rapid  formation  in  this  country. 

Sometime  ago  I  noticed  the  definition  that  an  eminent 
writer  gave  to  the  word  loafer,  and  as  nearly  as  I  can 
recall  —  a  loafer  —  one  who  works  not  himself  but 
lives  on  the  work  of  others,  either  as  a  gentleman,  or 
as  a  tramp  or  a  beggar  or  a  pauper  —  both  classes  are 
kept  through  the  support  of  others. 
^Washington  Times,  Dec.  16,  1903. 
[63] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

The  upper  and  lower  ends  are  borne  by  the  great 
middle  classes, —  and  the  growth  and  increase  of  the 
upper  tends  continually  to  increase  the  number  of  the 
lower  —  These  great  extremes  result  primarily  from  the 
unequal  distribution  of  the  profits  resulting  from  the 
handling  of  earth's  products.  This  is  the  reason  of  the 
one  per  cent  of  the  families  owning  already  more  than 
the  remaining  99  per  cent. 

It  is  from  this  that  the  "  smart "  set  comes,  sometimes 
called  the  "  brainless  "  set,  sometimes  the  "  thoughtless.  " 
The  maker  of  the  fortune,  the  father  or  the  grand- 
father, many  times  made  from  the  most  common  clay 
stuff,  but  with  an  ability  in  manipulating,  in  accumulat- 
ing, sometimes  with  a  working  knowledge  of  scarcely 
one  of  the  ten  commandments,  was  the  one  who  did 
the  work;  and  the  descendants  become  dwellers  in 
idleness,  and  worse  than  idleness,  for  the  old  gentleman 
has  helped  them  onto  the  backs  of  other  people  and  from 
this  position  they  refuse  politely  to  descend,  and  will 
remain  there  until  the  people  bring  about  a  different 
set  of  conditions  on  the  one  hand,  or  until  idleness  and 
luxury,  so  many  times  descending  into  vice,  has  sapped 
the  vitality  and  the  common  level  is  found  again.  It  was 
John  Stewart  Mill  who  pointed  out  the  following  facts: 

"  When  men  talk  of  the  ancient  wealth  of  a  country, 
of  riches  inherited  from  ancestors,  and  similar  expres- 
sions, the  idea  suggested  is,  that  the  riches  so  trans- 
mitted were  produced  long  ago,  at  the  time  when  they 
are  said  to  have  been  first  acquired,  and  that  no  portion 
[64] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

of  the  capital  of  a  country  was  produced  this  year  except 
so  much  as  may  have  been  this  year  added  to  the  total 
amount.  The  fact  is  far  otherwise. 

"  The  greater  part  in  value  of  the  wealth  now  existing 
in  England  has  been  produced  by  human  hands  within 
the  last  twelve  months.  A  very  small  proportion  indeed 
of  that  large  aggregate  was  in  existence  ten  years  ago; 
of  the  present  productive  capital  of  the  country  scarcely 
any  part,  except  farmhouses  and  factories,  and  a  few 
ships  and  machines,  and  even  these  would  not  in  most 
cases  have  survived  so  long,  if  fresh  labour  had  not  been 
employed  within  that  period  in  putting  them  into 
repair. 

"The  land  subsists,  and  the  land  is  almost  the  only 
thing  that  subsists.  Everything  which  is  produced 
perishes,  and  most  things  very  quickly. 

"  Capital  is  kept  in  existence  from  age  to  age,  not  by 
preservation,  but  by  perpetual  reproduction. " 

A  great  deal  of  very  bad  sense  and  a  lack  of  discrimi- 
nating thought  is  shown  at  the  present  day  in  an  in- 
discriminate vituperation  of  the  rich,  as  if  all  were  of 
the  same  class.  It  is  by  no  means  true.  They  cannot  be 
indiscriminately  classed  together  nor  spoken  of  in  the 
same  category  any  more  than  various  types  of  business 
enterprises,  those  that  though  large  are  straightforward 
and  honourable,  and  those  that  seem  to  be  the  very 
epitome  of  hell  in  their  methods. 

Among  the  rich  are  some  of  the  finest  and  noblest 
types,  and  most  valuable  in  the  social  structure.  More- 
over, it  seems  to  me  that  there  should  be  not  only  no 

[65] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

indiscriminate  vituperation,  but  none  at  all.  Whatever 
blame  there  is  should  rightly  rest  upon  those  sitting 
quietly  by  and  allowing  a  system  of  social  and  economic 
injustice  and  inequality  to  be  built  up  that  enables  a 
few  to  become  so  enormously  and  so  drunkenly  rich 
that  even  they  themselves  and  their  descendants  suffer 
from  the  effects  of  it,  and  on  the  other  hand  millions  of 
men,  women,  and  children  are  reduced  to  a  life  of  con- 
tinual poverty  and  misery  through  this  very  inequality 
that  we  permit.  This  in  face  of  the  fact  that  the  demands 
of  the  people  could  be  made  for  an  economic  and  in- 
dustrial justice  in  a  manner  so  convincing  and  so  com- 
pelling that  no  bodies  or  groups  of  men  or  families, 
however  powerful  they  may  be,  however  drunk  with 
gain  and  influence,  or  however  skilled  in  methods  of 
manipulation,  could  do  anything  other  than  listen  to 
and  heed  these  demands. 

Not  hostility  to  the  rich,  a  foolish  as  well  as  dangerous 
proceeding,  but  a  fully  prepared  and  determined  and 
never-ending  hostility  to  a  political  and  industrial 
system  that  permits  a  few  to  become  so  excessively 
rich,  and  hence  such  unequal  and  such  rapidly  grow- 
ing dangerous  conditions.  It  is  not  their  fault  but  ours 
if  we  permit  these  conditions  to  continue.  They  are 
doing  only  what  large  numbers  of  those  who  condemn 
them  would  do  under  similar  circumstances. 

It  is  a  beautiful  little  village  of  3,000  people.  The 
public  Common  was  a  joy  and  a  pleasure  to  all; 
rich  in  flowers,  in  grass,  in  trees,  in  birds  and  song. 
Sometime  ago  several    influential  families  turned  and 

[66] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

now  pasture  their  cows  in  it.  The  people  through  neg- 
ligence permitted  it.  The  owners  of  the  cows  are  now 
using  a  great  abundance  of  very  rich  cream.  But  for  the 
people  the  joy  of  the  Common  is  gone.  Sometime  the 
people  will  awake  and  the  cows  will  be  driven  from  the 
Common  and  forever.  Their  ■  owners  will  never  take 
them  out  of  their  own  accord.  They  have  grown  to  love 
cream  dearly. 

The  system  is  now  at  fault,  and  must  be  changed  even 
for  the  safety  and  perpetuity  of  the  nation,  as  well  as 
the  welfare  of  the  great  mass  of  the  people.  As  it  is  now 
the  great  proportion  is  simply  a  grist  for  the  few. 

Bishop  Potter  of  New  York  has  recently  said :  "  The 
growth  of  wealth  and  of  luxury,  wicked,  wasteful  and 
wanton,  as  before  God  I  declare  that  luxury  to  be,  has 
been  matched  step  by  step  by  a  deepening  and  deadening 
poverty,  which  has  left  whole  neighbourhoods  of  people 
practically  without  hope  and  without  aspiration. " 

In  The  Churchman  of  June  4,  1904,  occurred  the 
following  paragraph:  "Some  startling  facts  were  pre- 
sented at  the  conference  of  the  C.  A.  I.  L.  (The  Church 
Association  for  the  Advancement  of  the  Interests  of 
Labour)  by  its  tenement-house  committee.  Out  of  512 
families  investigated  by  Dr.  Daniel,  of  the  New  York 
Infirmary  for  Women  and  Children,  one  in  a  little  less 
than  eight  lived  in  rear  houses,  though  these  have  been 
legally  forbidden  for  years;  two-thirds  (377)  lived  in 
houses  with  dark  halls;  only  forty  in  houses  where  the 
halls  were  really  light.  But  one  of  the  houses  could  be 
reported  as  in  really  good  condition;  222  were  in  moder- 

[67] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

ately  good  repair;  255  dirty  and  out  of  repair.  The 
earnings  of  these  families  averaged  $3.81  a  week,  and 
of  this  they  paid  almost  exactly  half,  $1.85,  for  rent. 
The  number  of  persons  in  a  family  averaged  4.26,  so 
that  there  was  left,  after  paying  rent,  forty-six  cents  for 
each  person  for  food,  clothing,  heat,  light  and  the  rest.  " 

We  make  poverty  and  then  bountifully  supply,  or 
attempt  to  supply,  relief  for  it  to  the  sad,  sad  numbers 
who  despite  their  most  diligent  and  heroic  efforts  are 
cast  into  it.  It  is  indeed  a  sort  of  "  benevolent  feudalism. " 
It  has  been  said  and  so  truthfully,  that  the  rich  and  pow- 
erful will  do  anything  for  the  poor  but  get  off  their  backs. 

The  munificence  of  our  charities  and  relief  works  is 
in  one  sense  a  most  beautiful  feature  of  our  country's 
civilization.  In  another  sense  it  is  one  of  the  most 
horrible  shames,  in  that  it  registers,  and  still  counte- 
nances the  great  mass  of  the  poverty  among  us,  only  a 
small  fraction  of  which  is  necessary.  We  spend  annually 
in  charity  and  relief  —  public  and  private  —  over 
two  hundred  million  dollars,  and  the  demands  are  con- 
tinually in  advance  of  the  ways  of  meeting  them.  The 
demand  for  relief  always  keeps  considerable  in  advance 
of  the  supply  —  such  is  the  testimony  of  Prof.  Amos 
G.  Warner  in  his  able  book  "  American  Charities. " 
But  with  it  all  we  have  not  yet  learned  the  far  greater 
economy  of  prevention  over  cure,  or  attempted  cure, 
in  addition  to  the  frightful  amount  of  suffering  and 
misery  and  degradation  that  such  a  system  brings  to 
such  vast  numbers.  The  following  partial  illustration 
may  be  suggestive.  A  few  years  ago  in  Glasgow  there 

[68] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

existed  a  frightful  death  rate  among  the  people  of  a 
certain  portion  of  the  city.  The  municipal  authorities, 
more  quick  to  act  for  the  people  than  in  similar  cases 
among  us,  examined  into  the  conditions,  found  the 
causes,  and  demolished  the  houses  in  that  immediate 
section  and  erected  new  tenements  to  take  their  places. 
The  death  rate  was  reduced  from  fifty-five  per  thousand 
to  a  little  over  fourteen  per  thousand.  A  slum  immedi- 
ately adjoining  still  had  a  death  rate  of  fifty-three  per 
thousand.  Here  stood  two  groups  of  dwellings  housing 
practically  the  same  class  of  people,  one  having  a  death 
rate  of  a  little  over  fourteen  to  every  thousand  and  the 
other  a  death  rate  almost  four  times  as  great.  But  for 
this  common-sense  action,  this  frightful  and  unneces- 
sary death  rate  would  have  kept  up  year  after  year, 
and  charity  and  relief  would  have  been  taxed  both  in 
money  and  in  energy  to  a  far  greater  extent  than  the 
amounts  of  money  and  energy  that  were  required  to 
make  the  surroundings  of  these  people  decent,  and  as 
becomes  a  civilized  community. 

The  following  paragraphs  are  filled  with  truth  con- 
cerning this  matter  of  charity  and  relief :  "  In  its  origin 
charity  sprang  from  the  noblest  feeling  —  that  sympathy 
with  others  which  prompts  us  to  relieve  suffering.  The 
impulse  to  feed  the  hungry,  clothe  the  naked  and  shelter 
the  homeless,  is  wholly  creditable.  But  the  modern 
machinery  of  public  and  private  charities,  supported 
by  taxation  or  by  private  funds  given  out  of  a  sense  of 
obligation,  is  abominable. 

"All  statistics  of  charitable  organizations  show  that 
[69] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

the  real  trouble  with  the  great  majority  of  the  people 
who  seek  relief,  is  lack  of  work.  At  least  75  per 
cent  of  those  who  are  assisted  by  private  charity 
or  public  institutions  are  able  and  willing  to  work,  if 
only  they  could  find  employment.  And  the  remaining 
25  per  cent,  including  the  children,  the  sick,  etc.,  is 
indirectly  the  result  of  the  same  conditions  of  lack 
of  work  or  low  wages.  Because  of  inability  on  the 
part  of  parents  to  make  provision  for  their  children,  the 
orphan  asylums  and  industrial  homes  are  overflowing. 
Because  of  distress  brought  on  by  insufficient  nourish- 
ment, or  by  living  in  unhealthy  tenements,  the  hospitals 
are  crowded.  Because  the  sick  are  poor  they  must  look 
for  free  medical  attendance  instead  of  employing  a 
physician.  So  with  practically  all  the  objects  of  charity. 
Directly  or  indirectly  the  need  for  help  arises  from  the 
fact  that  workers  are  not  able  to  support  themselves 
by  their  labour.  .  .  .  Those  who  have  worked  the 
hardest  at  charities  know  how  hopelessly  inefficient  and 
insufficient  they  are.  Charity  fails,  and  always  must  fail 
to  accomplish  its  aims,  because  it  concerns  itself  with 
surface  symptoms  and  not  with  fundamental  causes. 

"Since  charity  cannot  stop  anyone  from  shutting 
people  out  of  work,  it  cannot  do  anything  to  alleviate 
or  abolish  the  evils  arising  from  want  of  work.  When  it 
pretends  to  do  so,  it  is  a  fraud  used  to  soothe  the  vic- 
tims of  partisan  laws  into  silence. 

"The  rich  are  generally  well  aware  of  all  this  —  so 
they  charge  their  own  indifference  to  their  God,  and  say 
that  Jesus  said, '  The  poor  ye  shall  have  always  with 

[70] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

you. '  Jesus  never  said  anything  of  the  sort.  He  said, 
'The  poor  ye  have  with  you  always  and  whensoever 
ye  will  ye  may  do  them  good '  (Mark  14,  7) ;  that  is, 
may  abolish  their  poverty  and  the  causes  of  it,  too.  I 
commend  to  those  religious  persons  the  last  four  verses 
of   Revelation.  "* 

And  while  I  think  the  author  of  these  paragraphs 
is  in  the  main  right,  I  think  he  speaks  somewhat  too 
generally  in  regard  to  the  motives  that  actuate  many  rich 
people  who  give  to  charity,  for  I  know  many  are  ani- 
mated by  motives  of  the  highest  and  noblest  type.  And 
until  they  can  see  their  way  to  spend  a  portion  of  their 
means  and  energy  in  a  far  wiser  and  more  effective 
way  —  in  an  endeavour  to  bring  about  more  just  and 
equitable  conditions  in  the  social  and  industrial  life 
of  the  country,  may  they  not  cease  the  good  work  they 
are  doing. 

Then  so  far  as  the  practical  effects  of  charity  upon 
those  who  are  its  recipients,  the  following  testimony 
of  Mrs.  Josephine  Shaw  Lowell,  is  quite  thoroughly 
in  keeping  with  the  testimony  of  practically  all  ex- 
perienced workers  and  observers  in  this  field  of  charity. 
Mrs.  Lowell  says,  "  Whatever  exception  you  may  have 
encountered,  you  know  that  the  rule  is  that  those  who 
receive  relief  are  or  soon  become  idle,  intemperate, 
untruthful,  vicious,  or  at  least  quite  shiftless  and  im- 
provident. You  know  that  the  more  relief  they  have 
as  a  rule;  the  more  they  need.  You  knew  that  it  is 
destructive  to  energy  and  industry,  and  that  the  taint 

*From  "  Free  America,"  by  Bolton  Hall. 
[71] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

passes  from  generation  to  generation  and  that  a  pauper 
family  is  more  hopeless  to  reform  than  a  criminal 
family. " 

Our  efforts  must  be  to  deal  not  so  much  with  charity 
and  relief,  as  with  the  causes  that  make  such  vast 
amounts  of  charity  and  relief  necessary.  It  is  simply 
astounding,  our  willingness  to  let  things  go  on  as  they 
are  and  then  care  for  the  unfortunate  millions  who 
fall  in  their  struggles  against  such  tremendous  odds. 

We  allow  our  municipal  and  state  representatives  — 
who  thereby  become  representatives  of  the  great 
moneyed  and  corporate  interests  —  to  give  over  fran- 
chises for  the  use  of  great  public  utilities  that  should  be 
used  for  the  people  and  with  millions  upon  millions 
in  value,  to  the  personal  and  private  uses  of  little  groups 
of  men,  without  asking  in  most  cases  even  a  dollar  in 
compensation  and  then  we  tamely  accept  poor  ser- 
vice, high  charges,  many  times  disgusting  and  almost 
inhuman  treatment.  They  give  it.  We  accept  it.  We 
accept  it  even  as  if  we  did  not  know  better  and  as  if  it 
were  something  we  had  to  submit  to,  rather  than  be- 
cause we  choose  to.  Thus  we  make  them  increasingly 
rich  and  daring  and  unscrupulous,  so  that  out  of  their 
enormous  profits,  wrung  from  the  constantly  increasing 
needs  of  the  people,  they  are  enabled  to  build  up  great 
corruption  funds,  to  maintain  strong  and  powerful 
lobbies  to  influence  all  legislation  in  their  favour,  to  kill 
all  that  may  be  adverse,  in  other  words  all  that  may  be 
for  the  interests  of  the  people.  In  this  way  they  have 
gone  on  and  on,  getting  many  times  by  direct  purchase 

[72] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
of  the  votes  of  the  members  of  our  city  councils  and  of 
legislators,  additional  properties  that  by  all  laws  of 
common-sense  as  well  as  the  most  crude  laws  of  justice, 
should  belong  to,  should  be  managed  by  and  for  the 
people.  Some  day,  and  before  long  now,  we  will  wonder 
at  the  asinine  qualities  that  we  American  people  have 
displayed  in  this  respect. 

Little  wonder  then  that  the  business  and  propertied 
classes  have  grabbed  and  are  still  grabbing  everything 
in  sight,  as  well  as  appropriating  to  themselves  the 
machinery  of  government.  They  will  continue  to  do 
this  as  long  as  the  people  permit  it. 

These  agencies,  eminently  "respectable,"  though 
many  times  rheumatic  and  gouty,  whence  spring  the 
greatest  forces  of  corruption  in  the  country,  are  already 
gnawing  at  the  very  vitals  of  the  nation's  welfare,  as 
well  as  at  its  safety  and  perpetuity.  The  nation  of  free- 
men is  already  in  danger.  The  mutterings  of  the  great 
discontent  are  already  most  clearly  audible  even  to  the 
most  indifferent  and  unconcerned.  Of  these  all  think- 
ing men  and  women  are  most  keenly  aware.  The 
nation  cannot  remain  in  safety,  but  must  retrograde 
and  this  splendid  example  of  free  institutions  and  free 
men  and  women  must  be  counted  abortive  unless  a 
movement  and  a  very  pronounced  and  determined  and 
unceasing  movement  is  quickly  made  to  beat  back  the 
advance  of  the  sleek,  cunning,  conscienceless  bands, 
whose  motto  is  greed  and  whose  method  is  corruption. 
It  is  carrying  a  blight,  withering  and  deadening  to  free 
institutions,  into  every  quarter  that  it  touches. 

[73] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

"  If  the  King  of  Mexico  has  any  gold, "  said  Cortez, 
as  he  and  his  followers  stood  clamouring  at  the  gates  of 
Montezuma,  "  let  him  send  it  out  to  us.  For  I  and  my 
companions  have  a  disease  of  the  heart  which  is  cured 
by  gold. " 

Sometime  ago  that  very  keen  observer,  matchless 
thinker,  and  great  lover  of  justice  and  of  men,  hence, 
of  his  country's  welfare,  Henry  George,  gave  utterance 
to  the  following;  most  significant  words  :* 

"  The  evils  arising  from  the  unjust  and  unequal  dis- 
tribution of  wealth,  which  are  becoming  more  and 
more  apparent  as  modern  civilization  goes  on,  are  not 
incidents  of  progress,  but  tendencies  which  must  bring 
progress  to  a  halt.     .     .     . 

"The  poverty  which  in  the  midst  of  abundance 
pinches  and  imbrutes  men,  and  all  the  manifold  evils 
which  flow  from  it,  spring  from  a  denial  of  justice. 
In  permitting  the  monopolization  of  the  opportunities 
which  nature  freely  offers  to  all,  we  have  ignored  the 
fundamental  law  of  justice  —  for,  so  far  as  we  can  see, 
when  we  view  things  upon  a  large  scale,  justice  seems 
to  be  the  supreme  law  of  the  universe.  But  by  sweeping 
away  this  injustice  and  asserting  the  rights  of  all  men  to 
natural  opportunities,  we  shall  conform  ourselves  to  the 
law  —  we  shall  remove  the  cause  of  unnatural  inequal- 
ity in  the  distribution  of  wealth  and  power, 
substitute  political  strength  for  political  weakness ;  and 
make  tyranny  and  anarchy  impossible.  .  .  .  Our 
primary  social  adjustment  is  a  denial  of  justice.     .     .     . 

*  "Progress  and  Poverty,"  p.  541  (1900). 

[74] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

It  is  this  that  turns  the  blessings  of  material  progress  into 
a  curse.  It  is  this  that  crowds  human  beings  into  noisome 
cellars  and  squalid  tenement-houses;  that  fills  prisons 
and  brothels ;  that  goads  men  with  want  and  consumes 
them  with  greed;  that  robs  women  of  the  grace  and 
beauty  of  perfect  womanhood;  that  takes  from  little 
children  the  joy  and  innocence  of  life's  morning. 

"Civilization  so  based  cannot  continue.  The  eternal 
laws  of  the  universe  forbid  it.  Ruins  of  dead  empires 
testify,  and  the  witness  that  is  in  every  soul  answers, 
that  it  cannot  be.  It  is  something  grander  than  Benevo- 
lence, something  more  august  than  Charity  —  it  is 
Justice  herself  that  demands  of  us  to  right  this  wrong. 
Justice  that  will  not  be  denied ;  that  cannot  be  put  off  — 
Justice  that  with  the  scales  carries  the  sword. 

"  Can  it  be  that  the  gifts  of  the  Creator  may  be  thus 
misappropriated  with  impunity  ?  Is  it  a  light  thing  that 
labour  should  be  robbed  of  its  earnings  while  greed 
rolls  in  wealth  —  that  the  many  should  want  while  the 
few  are  surfeited  ?  Turn  to  history,  and  on  every  page 
may  be  read  the  lesson  that  such  wrong  never  goes  un- 
punished; that  the  Nemesis  that  follows  injustice 
never  falters  nor  sleeps!  Look  around  to-day.  Can  this 
state  of  thing  continue?  May  we  even  say,  "After  us 
the  deluge ! "  Nay ;  the  pillars  of  the  state  are  trembling 
even  now,  and  the  very  foundations  of  society  begin  to 
quiver  with  pent-up  forces  that  glow  underneath.  The 
struggle  that  must  either  revivify,  or  convulse  in  ruin, 
is  near  at  hand,  if  it  be  not  already  begun. " 

Thoughtful  and  fearless  men  are  in  increasingly 
[75] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

large  numbers  raising  the  warning  voice.  Shall  we  listen 
briefly  to  some  types  of  these  warnings  ?  The  following 
paragraph  is  from  the  editor  of  one  of  our  prominent 
magazines : 

"  With  the  waning  of  religious  faith  comes  the  wor- 
ship of  wealth  and  the  attendant  evils  of  extravagance, 
ostentation,  false  pretence,  envy,  and  wide-spread  dis- 
content. That  nation  is  in  a  bad  way,  indeed,  when  it  is 
notoriously  true  that  the  mass  of  its  citizens  will  do 
almost  anything  to  get  money,  and  are  able  to  do  almost 
anything  by  means  of  money,  to  ignore  or  violate  the 
laws,  to  laugh  at  decent  opinion,  to  override  popular 
rights,  and  to  trample  on  the  poor.  The  United 
States  is  not  yet  in  such  a  lamentable  case,  our  land 
still  abounds  in  honest  men  and  unspoiled  women,  but, 
with  the  unparalleled  growth  of  private  fortunes  and 
the  spirit  of  wanton  display,  with  the  increase,  on  the 
other  hand,  of  misery  and  wretchedness,  we  are  rapidly 
approaching  the  danger  line  where  millions  of  our 
miserable  poor  may  well  cry  out  to  thousands  of  our 
prodigal  rich:  — 'How  comes  it  that  you  have  so  much 
while  we  have  so  little  ?  How  can  you  justify  this  shame- 
ful squandering  of  wealth  when  you  see  us,  your 
brothers,  toiling  in  factories  and  sweat-shops,  starving 
in  tenements,  and  wasted  by  disease  ? ' 

The  following  is  a  type  of  recent  independent  pulpit 
utterance.  Speaking  first  of  the  enormous  sums  expended 
annually  in  charity  in  the  United  States  it  continues : 

"This  colossal  sum  is  about  equally  divided  among 
public  relief,  private  giving  and  the  charities  of  the 

[76] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

churches.  How  much  good  does  it  do  ?  Is  it  merely  an 
anaesthetic  to  benumb  the  poor,  lest  they  cry  too  loud  ? 
Can  wisdom  and  virtue  eliminate  the  conditions  that 
make  charity  necessary? 

"  The  true  philanthropist  is  the  good  steward  —  the 
man  who  labours,  plans,  executes  the  honourable  busi- 
ness enterprises  of  this  world.  He  who  opens  the  doors 
of  steady  employment,  pays  an  honest,  living  wage,  by 
his  foresight  and  skill  frustrates  'panics,'  'depressions' — 
this  is  the  true  philanthropist.  His  business  enterprises 
are  a  blessing  to  the  community. 

"Then,  again,  there  are  those  whom  Jesus  lashes 
like  scorpions  —  men  who  lay  burdens  on  men's  shoul- 
ders grievous  to  be  borne,  and  do  not  as  much  as  touch 
them  with  their  little  finger!  There  are  those  who, 
having  a  giant's  strength,  are  using  it  like  a  tyrant  — 
promoting  monopolies  that  oppress  the  people,  con- 
trolling the  necessities  of  life  —  beef,  sugar,  oil,  coal  — 
and  thus  use  their  business  positions  as  did  the  old 
barons  their  castles  —  places  for  plunder.  This  kind 
of  social  wrong  makes  poverty  and  prepares  for  social 
revolution.  Jesus  commends  justice  to  all  such.  If 
parasites  and  plunderers  were  abolished,  there  would  be 
very  little  need  of  philanthropy." 

Said  a  well-known  Bishop  at  a  Chamber  of  Commerce 
dinner  recently,  at  which  many  prominent  million- 
aires were  seated:  "The  people,  the  great  common 
people,  are  suspicious  that  some  great  corporations  and 
masses  of  wealth  are  protected,  or  their  interests  ad- 
[77] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

vanced  in  ways  that  are  inconsistent  with  the  rights  of 
the  people. 

"They  may  have  no  material  grounds  for  their 
suspicions,  but  they  are  suspicious,  and  so  are  many  of 
you. 

"I  am  not  so  afraid  of  the  rich  man  in  politics  as  I 
am  of  the  poor  and  weak  man  in  politics,  and  the  rich 
man  outside. 

"  Civilization  cannot  go  on  where  there  is  mutual 
suspicion,  and  prosperity  cannot  go  on  long  while  the 
people  feel  or  think  that  the  reverence  for  law  by  which 
property  is  safeguarded  is  not  upheld. 

"The  massing  of  great  wealth  in  corporations  has 
come  to  stay,  but  neither  our  sympathies,  nor  the  risk 
to  great  properties,  nor  the  curtailment  or  loss  of  our 
properties  can  reconcile  us  to  any  dallying  with  the 
rights  and  liberties  of  the  people. " 

Sometime  ago  an  able  and  well-known  contributer 
to  various  English  and  Continental  periodicals,  one 
whose  work  has  made  his  residence  for  sometime  past 
in  various  capitals,  and  now  residing  in  London,  spoke 
as    follows : 

"  What  you  have  to  deal  with  in  America  is  snobbery. 
We  have  here  in  London  a  host  of  American  women  who 
have  shaken  the  democratic  dust  of  America  off  their 
feet  forever,  and  who  are  nightly  to  be  seen  at  the  royal 
opera,  their  heads  covered  with  tiaras  and  coronets, 
giving  themselves  all  the  airs  and  presumptions  of 
sybaritic  queens,  and  who  think  it  a  disgrace  to  talk  of 
America.  Yet  their  fortunes  were  made  in  the  American 

[78] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
mines  and  the  American  railroads,  and  without  the 
American  labourer  they  would  this  moment  be  living  in 
the  backwoods,  on  the  remote  plains,  or  on  some  obscure 
street  of  New  York,  unheard  of,  unobserved  and  un- 
known. Snobbery  is  undermining  American  institutions. 
.  .  .  Within  a  short  period  of  twenty  years  your 
rich  American  snobs  have  made  of  New  York,  Wash- 
ington, and  Chicago  antechambers  of  London  and  Paris. 
.  .  .  As  for  American  women  marrying  English 
lords,  I  have  this  to  say:  the  women  who  bring  their 
fortunes  here  are  bringing  them  to  bolster  up  a  decadent 
world.  ...  I  predict  an  invasion  of  broken-down 
lords  of  all  grades  in  the  near  future,  until  at  last  there 
will  not  be  a  fortune  left  in  America  of  any  consider- 
able size  that  will  not  pass  to  the  favour  of  men  resid- 
ing in  England  or  on  the  Continent.  'Come  what  may,' 
said  an  Englishman  to  me  not  long  ago, '  we  are  bound 
to  possess  the  wealth  of  the  American  millionaires  in 
the  long  run,  through  the  American  women.' ' 

We  have  dwelt  at  great  length  upon  the  dark  side  of 
the  picture,  because  it  is  so  essential  that  we  see  this  side 
fully  and  that  we  see  it  at  once.  But  there  is  another  side, 
and  that  not  without  a  great  deal  of  brightness.  Were 
we  in  the  condition  of  the  people  of  Russia  up  to  the 
present  time  for  example  —  without  a  voice  in  the  affairs 
of  government  —  then  we  would  indeed  be  in  a  bad  way. 
With  the  forces  we  have  been  considering  already  so 
fully  intrenched  and  so  skilled  in  their  methods,  there 
would  indeed  be  no  hope.  But  the  battles  for  political 
[79] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

emancipation  were  waged  and  won,  as  King  John  and 
others,  were  they  living,  would  so  vividly  recall,  many 
years  ago.  We  are  a  body  of  freemen  with  political 
rights,  and  the  final  deciders  of  what  the  conditions  in 
the  nation  shall  be.  This  gives  us  our  hope  and  our 
power.  With  this  we  can  gain  and  we  shall  gain,  in- 
dustrial and  economic  freedom,  justice,  and  equality. 
This  is  the  power  with  which  we  shall  drive  to  the  back- 
ground, the  forces  that  have  been  making  a  byword  of 
freedom,  equality  and  justice. 

We  have  cause  to  be  grateful  by  virtue  of  the  newness 
and  power  of  the  country.  What  has  been  almost  the 
cause  of  our  undoing  shall  yet  be  the  means  by  which 
we  shall  be  saved.  We  have  political  freedom.  We 
have  full  religious  freedom,  full  independence  of 
Church  and  State.  We  are  free  from  the  cast  systems 
that  constitute  the  bane  of  so  many  old  world  countries. 
We  have  it  growing  among  us,  but  it  is  not  fixed  and 
can  yet  be  broken  by  an  aroused  and  determined  peo- 
ple. Our  reputation  is  somewhat  sullied  but  in  the 
main  yet  good.  Labour  is  uniting,  learning,  growing; 
self-seeking  and  unscrupulous  leaders  are  being  discov- 
ered and  thrown  out.  We  have  an  educational  system 
that  is  splendid  in  its  quality,  and  that  can  yet  be  made 
to  include  all,  even  those  that  need  it  most,  within  its 
scope.  The  masses  of  the  people  of  all  types  are  becom- 
ing profoundly  dissatisfied  with  present  conditions. 
They  are  inquiring  into  their  causes,  and  where  this  is, 
there  is  hope.  It  tells  also  much  of  the  future  outcome. 
A  Roosevelt,  a  Folke,  a  La  Follette  is  recognized  in  his 

[80] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

ideas  of  and  demands  for  a  more  equal  justice,  and  is 
rewarded  by  the  confidence  of  the  people  into  a  position 
of  still  greater  responsibility. 

The  past  several  months  even  have  witnessed  a  great 
stirring  among  the  people  —  among  others  an  examina- 
tion into  the  infamous  methods  of  the  Gas  Trusts  in  both 
New  York  and  Philadelphia.  So  infamous  had  they 
become  and  so  brazen  in  satisfying  their  ever  increasing 
and  insatiable  appetites  for  larger  and  ever  larger  profits 
wrung  from  a  great  common  need  of  the  people,  that 
public  opinion  was  finally  compelled  to  rise  up  and  say, 
So  far  and  no  farther. 

The  people  of  another  great  city  have  registered  their 
protest  against  the  methods  of  another  public  service 
concern  that  has  for  years  been  taking  millions  upon 
millions  of  toll  from  them,  and  with  a  service  in  most  re- 
spects the  most  abominable.  They  have  asked  why  half- 
a-dozen  or  more  men  should  every  twelvemonth  receive 
their  millions,  while  the  people  should  receive  practical 
insult  at  their  hands.  They  have  voiced  their  protest  so 
strongly  and  in  such  a  common-sense  and  practical  man- 
ner that  the  blood-sucking  tentacles  of  the  already  over- 
fed and  bloated  creature  are  now  being  withdrawn. 
Other  localities  are  taking  lesson  from  this  and  are  rising 
up  against  any  further  granting  of  enormous  wealth- 
creating  franchises  to  individuals,  or  if  so,  for  nothing 
but  very  short  periods,  and  then  not  without  compensa- 
tion full  and  complete. 

Likewise  revelations  in  connection  with  various  other 
public  and  semi-public  service  concerns  and  the  methods 
[81] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

of  still  other  large  business  concerns  have  been  coming 
to  us  with  startling  import  during  even  the  past  few 
months. 

And  just  as  soon  as  sufficient  numbers  of  our  people 
take  enough  interest  in  the  public  welfare, — which  means 
always  their  own  welfare  to  a  far  greater  degree  than 
many  are  given  to  realize,  and  thereby  become  conversant 
with  the  actual  conditions  that  are  fast  crystallizing 
about  us  and  the  agencies  that  are  at  work  in  their  sly 
and  subtle  manner  bringing  them  about,  then  the  forces 
will  be  engendered  that  will  take  the  Republic  to  that 
eminent  and  true  position,  that  by  the  grace  of  God 
and  the  awakened  common-sense  of  the  people,  we 
believe  it  shall  yet  attain. 


[82] 


ni 

AS  TIME  DEALS  WITH  NATIONS 

1  IME  has  a  strange  way  of  dealing  with  nations  and 
with  men.  Its  great  clock  ticks  unerringly  on.  It  seems, 
in  a  sense,  to  be  merely  the  sentinel  of  a  great  and  im- 
mutable system  of  Law. 

When  the  nation  gets  sufficiently  sick  and  diseased 
it  dies  as  does  the  individual.  Its  hour  is  struck  off  with 
an  unerring  precision.  From  that  instant  the  process  of 
disintegration  sets  in  to  crumble  and  consume  the 
body,  the  structure  that  so  shortly  before  held  the  spirit. 

It  would  be  useless  and  indeed  foolish  to  say  that 
there  seem  to  be  great  immutable  laws  that  govern  and 
that  determine  the  life,  the  ways,  the  fate  of  nations. 
If  history  means  anything  it  means  this,  and  he  who 
will  may  read.  These  same  laws  exist  to-day  and  as  has 
occurred  will  occur  again  under  like  or  similar 
conditions. 

So  clearly  has  history  written  her  pages  that  he  who 
will  may  go  at  once  to  her  oft  repeated  forms,  and  read 
with  a  quickness  and  clearness  that  no  man  can  mis- 
understand. It  is  always  in  substance  —  that  great 
privilege  and  wealth  and  oppression  have  been  the  cause 
of  the  gradual  undermining  and  the  final  fall  and  dis- 
integration of  all  the  earlier  states  that  have  flourished 

[83] 


In  the  fire  of  the  Heart 

and  that  have  passed.  They  failed  to  realize  the  im- 
mutability and  the  precision  of  the  laws  that  govern 
men  and  nations.  Moreover,  no  nation  or  no  man  has 
ever  been  rich  enough  or  powerful  enough  to  change  or 
to  escape  the  accuracy  of  their  workings.  There  are 
those  who  thought  it,  and  for  a  time  their  efforts  have 
seemed  to  be  successful,  but  at  the  right  moment  they 
have  been  crushed  and  powdered,  even  as  the  rock  has 
crushed  and  has  powdered  the  shell  of  the  egg;  and  as 
long  as  time  endures  this  story  will  be  repeated  in  the 
life  of  every  nation  and  every  individual  that  does  not 
stop  to  learn  the  writing. 

"Every  civilization,"  said  the  late  Henry  George, 
"That  has  been  overwhelmed  by  barbarians  has  really 
perished  from  internal  decay."  Elaborating  upon  this, 
he  has  said  :*  "  He  would  have  been  a  rash  man  who, 
when  Augustus  was  changing  the  Rome  of  brick  to  the 
Rome  of  marble,  when  wealth  was  augmenting  and 
magnificence  increasing,  when  victorious  legions  were  ex- 
tending the  frontier,  when  manners  were  becoming  more 
refined,  language  more  polished,  and  literature  rising  to 
higher  splendours  —  he  would  have  been  a  rash  man 
who  then  would  have  said  that  Rome  was  entering  her 
decline.     Yet  such  was  the  case. 

"And  whoever  will  look  may  see  that,  though  our 
civilization  is  apparently  advancing  with  greater  rap- 
idity than  ever,  the  same  cause  which  turned  Roman 
progress  into  retrogression  is  operating  now. 

"  What  has  destroyed  every  previous  civilization  has 

*  "  Progress  and  Poverty,"  p.  525. 
[84] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

been  the  tendency  to  the  unequal  distribution  of  wealth 
and  power.  This  same  tendency,  operating  with  in- 
creasing force,  is  observable  in  our  civilization  to- 
day.    .     .     . 

"  To  turn  a  republican  government  into  a  despotism 
the  basest  and  most  brutal,  it  is  not  necessary  formally 
to  change  its  constitution  or  abandon  popular  elec- 
tions. It  was  centuries  after  Csesar,  before  the  absolute 
master  of  the  Roman  world  pretended  to  rule  other 
than  by  authority  of  a  Senate,  that  trembled  before 
him.     .     .     . 

"Where  there  is  anything  like  an  equal  distribution 
of  wealth  —  that  is  to  say,  where  there  is  general  patriot- 
ism, virtue,  and  intelligence  —  the  more  democratic 
the  government  the  better  it  will  be;  but  where  there  is 
gross  inequality  in  the  distribution  of  wealth,  the  more 
democratic  the  government  the  worse  it  will  be;  for, 
while  rotten  democracy  may  not  in  itself  be  worse  than 
rotten  autocracy,  its  effects  upon  national  character 
will  be  worse.  To  give  the  suffrage  to  tramps,  to  paupers, 
to  men  to  whom  the  chance  to  labour  is  a  boon,  to  men 
who  must  beg,  or  steal,  or  starve,  is  to  invoke  destruc- 
tion. To  put  political  power  in  the  hands  of  men  em- 
bittered and  degraded  by  poverty,  is  to  tie  firebrands 
to  foxes  and  turn  them  loose  amid  the  standing  corn; 
it  is  to  put  out  the  eyes  of  a  Samson  and  to  twine  his 
arms  around  the  pillars  of  national  life.     .     .     . 

"A  corrupt  democratic  government  must  finally 
corrupt  the  people,  and  when  a  people  become  corrupt 
there  is  no  resurrection.  The  life  is  gone,  only  the  carcass 

[85] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

remains;  and  it  is  left  but  for  the  plowshares  of  fate  to 
bury  it  out  of  sight. 

"Now  this  transformation  of  popular  government 
into  despotism  of  the  vilest  and  most  degrading  kind, 
which  must  inevitably  result  from  the  unequal  distribu- 
tion of  wealth,  is  not  a  thing  of  the  far  future.  It  has 
already  begun  in  the  United  States,  and  is  rapidly  going 
on  under  our  eyes. 

"  In  theory  we  are  intense  democrats.  The  proposal  to 
sacrifice  swine  in  the  temple  would  hardly  have  excited 
greater  horror  and  indignation  in  Jerusalem  of  old  than 
would  among  us  that  of  conferring  a  distinction  of  rank 
upon  our  most  eminent  citizen.  But  is  there  not  growing 
up  among  us  a  class  who  have  all  the  power  without  any 
of  the  virtues  of  aristocracy?  We  have  simple  citizens 
who  control  thousands  of  miles  of  railroad,  millions  of 
acres  of  land,  the  means  of  livelihood  of  great  numbers  of 
men;  who  name  the  Governors  of  sovereign  States  as 
they  name  their  clerks,  choose  Senators  as  they  choose 
attorneys,  and  whose  will  is  as  supreme  with  Legisla- 
tures as  that  of  a  French  King  sitting  in  bed  of  justice. 
The  undercurrents  of  the  times  seem  to  sweep  us  back 
again  to  the  old  conditions  from  which  we  dreamed  we 
had  escaped. 

"  Whence  shall  come  the  new  barbarians  ?  Go  through 
the  squalid  quarters  of  great  cities,  and  you  may  see, 
even  now,  their  gathering  hordes!  How  shall  learning 
perish?  Men  will  cease  to  read,  and  books  will  kindle 
fires  and  be  turned  into  cartridges ! 

"Everywhere  the  increasing  intensity  of  the  struggle  to 
[86] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
live,  the  increasing  necessity  for  straining  every  nerve 
to  prevent  being  thrown  down  and  trodden   under  foot 
in  the  scramble  for  wealth,  is  draining  the  forces  which 
gain  and  maintain  improvements.     .     .     . 

"  But  as  sure  as  the  turning  tide  must  soon  run  full 
ebb;  as  sure  as  the  declining  sun  must  bring  darkness, 
so  sure  is  it,  that  though  knowledge  yet  increases  and 
invention  marches  on,  and  new  states  are  being  settled, 
and  cities  still  expand,  yet  civilization  has  begun  to  wane 
when,  in  proportion  to  population,  we  must  build  more 
and  more  prisons,  more  and  more  almshouses,  more  and 
more  insane  asylums.  It  is  not  from  top  to  bottom  that 
societies  die;  it  is  from  bottom  to  top. 

"  But  there  are  evidences  far  more  palpable  than  any 
that  can  be  given  by  statistics,  of  tendencies  to  the  ebb  of 
civilization.  There  is  a  vague  but  general  feeling  of  dis- 
appointment; an  increased  bitterness  among  the  work- 
ing classes ;  a  wide-spread  feeling  of  unrest  and  brooding 
revolution.  .  .  .  What  change  may  come,  no  mortal 
man  can  tell,  but  that  some  great  change  must  come, 
thoughtful  men  begin  to  feel.  The  civilized  world  is 
trembling  on  the  verge  of  a  great  movement.  Either  it 
must  be  a  leap  upward,  which  will  open  the  way  to  ad- 
vances yet  undreamed  of,  or  it  must  be  a  plunge  down- 
ward, which  will  carry  us  back  towards  barbarism." 

That  very  careful  and  able  philosopher  and  economist, 
Professor  Lange,  has  said:  "We  may  show  a  hundred 
times  that  with  the  success  of  speculation  and  great 
capitalists  the  position  of  everybody  else,  step  by  step, 

[87] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
improves;  but  so  long  as  it  is  true  that  with  every  step 
of  this  improvement  the  difference  in  the  position  of  in- 
dividuals and  in  the  means  for  further  advancement  also 
grows,  so  long  will  each  step  of  this  movement  lead 
towards  a  turning  point  where  the  wealth  and  power  of 
individuals  break  down  all  the  barriers  of  law  and  morals 
and  a  degraded  proletariat  serves  as  a  football  to  the 
passions  of  the  few,  until  at  last  everything  ends  in  a 
social  earthquake  which  swallows  up  the  artificial  edi- 
fice of  one-sided  and  selfish  interests.     .     .     .    The  state 
becomes  venal.  The  hopelessly  poor  will  just  as  easily 
hate  the  law  as  the  over-rich  despise  it.  Sparta  perished 
when  the  whole  land  of  the  country  belonged  to  a  hun- 
dred families;   Rome,   when  a  proletariat   of   millions 
stood  opposed  to  a  few  thousands  of  proprietors,  whose 
resources  were  so  enormous  that  Crassus  considered 
no  one  rich  who  could  not  maintain  an  army  at  his  own 
expense.     ...     In  mediaeval  Italy  also  popular  free- 
dom was  lost  through  a  moneyed  oligarchy  and  a  prole- 
tariat.    .     .     .     It  is  characteristic  that  in  Florence  the 
richest  banker  finally  becomes  an  unlimited  despot,  and 
that   contemporaneously   in    Genoa  the   Bank   of   St. 
George  in  a  measure  absorbed  the  state." 

Again  he  says :  "  The  present  state  of  things  has  been 
frequently  compared  with  that  of  the  ancient  world  be- 
fore its  dissolution,  and  it  cannot  be  denied  that  signifi- 
cant analogies  present  themselves.  We  have  the  im- 
moderate growth  of  riches,  we  have  the  proletariat,  we 
have  the  decay  of  morals  and  religion ;  the  present  forms 
of  government  all  have  their  existence  threatened,  and 

[88] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
the  belief  in  a  coming  general  and  mighty  revolution  is 
widely  spread  and  deeply  rooted." 

It  was  the  eminent  historian,  the  late  Professor 
Mommsen,  who  said:  "Riches  and  misery  in  close 
league  drove  the  Italians  out  of  Italy  and  filled  the  pen- 
insula partly  with  swarms  of  slaves,  partly  with  awful 
silence.  It  is  a  terrible  picture,  but  not  one  peculiar  to 
Italy;  whenever  the  government  of  capitalists  in  a  slave 
state  has  fully  developed  itself,  it  has  desolated  God's 
fair  world  in  the  same  way.  .  .  .  All  the  arrant  sins 
that  capital  has  been  guilty  of  against  nation  and  civiliza- 
tion in  the  modern  world  remain  as  far  inferior  to  the 
abomination  of  the  ancient  capitalist  states  as  the  free 
man,  be  he  ever  so  poor,  remains  superior  to  the  slave; 
and  not  until  the  dragon  seed  of  North  America  ripens 
will  the  world  have  again  similar  fruits  to  reap." 

Said  Emerson :  "  As  long  as  our  civilization  is  one  of 
property,  of  fences,  of  exclusiveness,  it  will  be  mocked 
by  delusions.  Our  riches  will  leave  us  sick,  there  will  be 
bitterness  in  our  laughter,  and  our  wine  will  burn  our 
mouth.  Only  that  good  profits  which  we  can  taste  with 
all  doors  open  and  which  serves  all  men." 

The  eminent  economist,  Professor  Smart,  of  Glasgow, 
makes  a  most  suggestive  statement  in  the  following: 
"  But  when  machinery  is  replacing  man  and  doing  the 
heavy  work  of  industry,  it  is  time  to  get  rid  of  that  an- 
cient prejudice  that  man  must  work  ten  hours  a  day  to 
keep  the  world  up  to  the  level  of  the  comfort  it  has 
attained.  Possibly,  if  we  clear  our  minds  of  cant,  we  may 
see  that  the  reason  why  we  still  wish  the  labourer  to 

[89] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

work  ten  hours  a  day  is  that  we,  the  comfortable  classes, 
may  go  on  receiving  the  lion's  share  of  the  wealth  these 
machines,  iron  and  human,  are  turning  out. " 

It  is  the  great  common  people  that  has  made  and  that 
has  been  the  backbone  of  every  nation,  and  as  long  as 
its  interests  are  guarded  and  as  long  as  the  tendency  is 
towards  an  ever  greater  equality  of  opportunities  for 
all,  so  long  is  a  nation  safe.  But  as  soon  as  extremes  of 
wealth  and  poverty  begin  to  manifest  themselves,  and 
privilege  grows,  resulting  in  still  greater  inequality  in 
the  distribution  of  wealth  and  power,  that  moment  the 
destructive  force  begins  its  work  —  a  force  that  grows 
by  what  it  feeds  upon,  an  evil  that  will  never  correct 
itself,  and  that,  unless  it  be  checked  by  the  great  common 
people,  will  carry  the  nation  to  destruction.  Oppression 
and  evil  is  its  own  destroyer. 

It  is  the  labourer  with  his  vine-clad  cottage,  and  suf- 
ficient of  those  things  that  make  for  peace  and  happiness 
and  content  in  the  life  of  a  normal  human  being,  it  is 
a  uniformly  prosperous  common  people,  that  consti- 
tutes the  really  great  nation,  and  not  a  few  castles 
with  their  hordes  of  hirelings  about  them. 

In  addition  to  those  nations  that  have  been  mentioned 
that  have  flourished,  that  have  grown  great  and  that 
have  declined,  we  might  mention  still  nation  after  nation. 
We  might  go  back  to  Egypt,  to  Assyria,  to  Babylon, 
and  to  the  other  earlier  civilizations,  but  we  find  the 
same  cause  in  all.  The  law  is  immutable  in  its  workings. 
Absolute,  seems  to  be  the  word.  The  larger  Justice  will 
not  be  denied.  She  may  seem  to  delay,  she  may  seem 

[90] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

even  at  times  to  take  no  account,  but  in  her  own  good 
way  and  time  she  strikes,  and  when  she  strikes  it  is  with 
a  terrible  vengeance.  As  she  is  with  nations,  so  is  she  also 
with  men. 

How  can  we  hope  then  that  this  civilization,  this  na- 
tion shall  escape,  any  more  than  those  that  in  their  day 
were  as  great,  as  proud  and  apparently  enduring,  if 
by  common  consent  the  same  forces  are  at  work  that  in 
time  spelled  destruction  to  those  that  have  preceded  us  ? 


I  91  J 


IV 
AS  TO  GOVERNMENT 

1  HERE  havebeen  many  able  disquisitions  on  the  theory 
and  the  functions  of  Government,  and  it  would  be  inter- 
esting did  space  permit,  to  examine  in  detail  into  some 
of  the  best  of  these.  Much,  however,  that  has  been  said, 
though  it  might  have  pertained  to  a  greater  or  less 
extent  to  the  time  or  times  in  which  it  was  said,  does  not 
pertain  to  our  present  time.  It  is  the  same  with  this  as 
with  a  great  deal  of  the  earlier  theological  discussions, 
vast  amounts  of  which  have  proved  to  be  so  inconse- 
quential that  we  pay  no  attention  to  them  at  present  and 
find  that  they  have  been  of  value  only  in  a  single  respect 
—  in  that  they  have  helped  lead  the  way  to  the  few  real 
things  that  we  are  finding  to-day  constitute  the  basis  of 
the  true  Religion. 

It  is  also  evident  that  a  theory  of  Government  that 
pertained  to  us  Saxon  people,  say  two  hundred  or  three 
hundred  years  ago,  and  fitted  the  degree  of  evolution  and 
life  we  had  attained  to  then,  is  not  a  theory  that  would 
pertain  to  us,  or  that  we  would  even  for  an  instant  think 
of  accepting  in  total  at  the  present  time. 

It  can  also  be  truthfully  said  that  for  a  thinking, 
growing,  aspiring  people,  some  of  the  methods  and 
principles  in  vogue  in  our  own  nation  even  fifty  years 

[92] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

ago  we  cannot,  we  should  not,  and  as  evidences  on  every 
hand  indicate,  we  no  longer  honour  nor  do  we  counte- 
nance in  the  year  1906.  A  growing,  progressive  life 
demands  that  we  keep  ourselves  up  to  the  mark  that  is 
the  truth  of  to-day,  and  that  we  be  careful  that  old 
forms  do  not  crystallize  about  us  either  in  religion  or  in 
government,  forms  that  will  tend  to  make  us  satisfied 
with  anything  but  the  vivid,  vital  truth  that  will  reveal 
itself  to  us  to-day  and  to-morrow  and  to-morrow,  if  we 
are  ever  on  the  alert  to  recognize  it. 

It  is  so  easy  to  hold  on  to  the  old  shells,  thinking  that 
there  is  in  them  something  of  value,  long  after  the  life  has 
departed  from  them  and  truth  with  all  its  goodly  train  has 
moved  on,  giving  joy  and  blessings  to  those  hat  are  keeping 
pace  with  her,  while  we  fondly  cling  to  the  worthless  thing. 

The  crying  error  of  the  time  is  that  we  stand  in  awe 
of  government  and  forget  that  we  are  government. 
Everything  that  is  enacted  in  the  nation,  or  in  any  of  at 
all  similar  constitution,  is  enacted  by  the  people  through 
their  chosen  representatives  acting  for  their  interests; 
or  by  the  consent  of  the  people,  in  that  these  representa- 
tives act  for  corporate  and  moneyed  interests,  through 
party  machines  and  platforms  and  manipulators. 
Where  the  people  should  be  supre  me,  manipulators  and 
moneyed  interests  working  through  parties  and  through 
City  Councils  and  Legislatures  are  supreme.  Lobbies 
and  manipulators  and  bribed  or  directly  bought  coun- 
cilmen  and  legislators  are  only  the  tools  of  the  moneyed 
interests.  This  is  at  the  bottom,  it  is  safe  to  say,  of  at 
least  nine-tenths  of  all  our  present  political  corruption; 

[93] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

for  the  manipulator,  the  ward-heeler,  the  lobbyist,  the 
saloon  keeping  councilman,  the  venal  state  legislator,  are 
only  the  tools  of  these  "interests. "  The  latter  are  the 
principals,  the  former  merely  the  agents  through  which 
they  work  to  obtain  the  privileges  —  the  natural  rights 
and  properties  of  the  people  —  through  which  they  make 
their  royal  millions. 

It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  at  those  periods  when 
corporations  and  private  business  has  been  most  venal, 
political  corruption,  either  municipal  or  state,  has  been 
the  most  open  and  brazen  and  black.  Yet  the  principals 
have  been  our  respectable  business  men,  founders 
sometimes  of  our  wealthiest  and  later  on  aristocratic 
and  exclusive  families.  They,  I  repeat,  have  been  the  big 
thieves  working  through  these  agencies. 

Lately  the  political  corruption  of  some  of  our  large 
cities  has  been  traced  and  exposed  by  Lincoln  Steffens  in 
a  series  of  articles  in  one  of  our  leading  magazines,  and 
later  republished  in  book  form  under  the  title,  "The 
Shame  of  the  Cities. "  In  one  of  his  articles  entitled 
"  Enemies  of  the  Republic,  "*  Mr.  Steffens  has  this  to  say: 

"Every  time  I  attempted  to  trace  to  its  source  the 
political  corruption  of  a  city  ring,  the  stream  of  pollution 
branched  off  in  the  most  unexpected  directions. 
It  flowed  out  of  the  majority  party  into  the  minority;  out 
of  politics  into  vice  and  crime,  out  of  business  into 
politics,  and  back  into  business.  .  .  .  We  are  all  of  us 
on  the  wrong  track.  You  can't  reform  a  city  by  reforming 
a  part  of  it.  You  can't  reform  a  city  alone.  You  can't  re- 

*McClure's  Magazine  for  April,  1904. 
[94] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

form  politics  alone.  .  .  .  The  corruption  of  our 
American  politics  is  our  American  corruption,  political, 
but  financial  and  industrial  too. 

"Our  political  corruption  is  a  system,  a  regularly 
established  custom  of  the  country,  by  which  our  political 
leaders  are  hired  by  bribery,  by  the  license  to  loot,  and 
by  quiet  moral  support,  to  conduct  the  government  of 
city,  state,  and  nation,  not  for  the  common  good,  but 
for  the  special  interests  of  private  business.  Not  the 
politician,  then,  not  the  bribe  taker,  but  the  bribe  giver, 
the  man  we  are  so  proud  of,  our  successful  business 
man,  he  is  the  source  and  the  sustenance  of  our  bad 
government.  The  captain  of  industry  is  the  man  to 
catch.  His  is  the  trail  to  follow. " 

We  as  a  nation  would  hold  up  our  hands  in  horror 
even  at  the  thought  —  we  are  so  intensely  democratic  — 
of  any  titled  person,  and  through  such  right,  even  though 
he  be  of  the  highest  type  and  one  imbued  with  the  high- 
est sense  of  public  welfare  and  justice,  ruling  over  us 
even  for  a  limited  time.  But  the  large  moneyed  interests 
have  gotten  us  so  used  to  it  that  we  seem  to  think 
nothing  of  having  large  and  important  portions  of  our 
public  affairs  in  the  hands  of  the  lowest  type  of  our 
citizenship,  and  allowing  them  to  do  most  important 
portions  of  our  governing  for  us.  We  seem  to  be  fully 
satisfied  that  they  be  our  rulers,  for  in  some  centres 
and  at  times  it  amounts  to  this.  It  is  through  them 
that  we  pass  over  annually  the  many  millions  of 
wealth  that  go  to  their  principals,  and  accept  in 
return,    meagre     and    many    times    disgraceful    and 

[95] 


In  the  Fire  of  tlie  Heart 

disgusting  types  of  public  service  that  many  times, 
or  to  speak  more  accurately,  that  generally,  give  to 
the  public. 

Such  has  been  the  origin  of  the  wealth  of  many  of 
our  enormously  rich  and  well-known  families,  and 
they  are  now  becoming  so  intrenched  as  to  become  a 
very  distinct  menace  to  the  public  welfare.  It  is  only 
by  a  socialized  people  that  their  power  can  now  be 
broken. 

Of  corruption  in  the  government  of  our  municipali- 
ties, Andrew  D.  White  as  ar  back  as  1890  had  this  to 
say:  "  Without  the  lightest  exaggeration,  we  may  assert 
that,  with  few  exceptions,  the  city  governments  of  the 
United  States  are  the  worst  in  Christendom,  the  most 
expensive,  the  most  inefficient,  and  the  most  corrupt. 
No  one  who  has  any  considerable  knowledge  of  our  own 
country  and  of  other  countries  can  deny  this. 

"  The  city  halls  of  these  larger  towns  are  the  acknowl- 
edged centres  of  the  vilest  corruption.  They  are  absolute- 
ly demoralizing,  not  merely  to  those  who  live  under  their 
sway,  but  to  the  country  at  large.  Such  cities,  like  the 
decaying  spots  on  ripe  fruit,  tend  to  corrupt  the  whole 
body  politic.  As  a  rule,  the  men  who  sit  in  the  councils 
of  our  larger  cities,  dispensing  comfort  or  discomfort, 
justice  or  injustice,  beauty  or  deformity,  health  or  dis- 
ease, to  this  and  to  future  generations,  are  men  who  in  no 
other  country  would  think  of  aspiring  to  such  positions. 
Some  of  them,  indeed,  would  think  themselves  lucky 
in  keeping  outside  the  prisons.  Officials  entrusted  with 
the  expenditure  of  the  vast  wealth  of  our  citizens  are 

[96] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

frequently  men  whom  no  one  would  think  of  entrusting 
with  the  management  of  his  private  affairs,  or,  indeed, 
of  employing  in  any  capacity.  Few  have  gained  their 
positions  by  fitness  or  by  public  service;  many  have 
gained  them  by  scoundrelism ;  some  by  crime."* 

The  same  can  be  said  of  various  members  of  our  state 
legislatures.  These  are  the  types  of  men  that  most  of  our 
great  corporate  interests  work  through.  Some  are  put 
there  deliberately  and  directly  for  this  purpose.  Should 
anyone  have  any  doubt  of  this,  let  him  become  thorough- 
ly acquainted  among  other  things  with  the  history  of  the 
principal  railroad  in  the  states,  say,  Michigan,  Penn- 
sylvania, New  York,  Connecticut,  Massachusetts. 

The  great  common  people  have  everything  in  their 
hands  when  they  once  fully  realize  it.  They  must  come 
forward  and  make  politicians  and  the  moneyed  interests 
know  their  power.  They  must  take  over  and  back  to 
themselves  the  power  that  they  have  gradually  allowed 
to  be  usurped  by  the  politician,  the  political  leader,  for 
these  enormously  fat  and  gorged  concerns  and  individ- 
uals. 

A  people  with  that  great  weapon  of  freedom  —  the 
franchise  —  are  invincible  in  the  expression  of  their 
preferences  and  their  demands  when  they  present  an 
intelligent  and  united  interest,  if  it  be  done  before  special 
privilege  with  its  great  accumulations  of  wealth  and 
power  has  grown  too  great  and  too  cunning  and  too 
corrupting.  When  we  take  into  consideration  how  vastly 

*The  Forum,  December,  1890. 

[97] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
the  great  common  working  people  out-number  the  privi- 
leged classes,  something  over  a  hundred  to  one,  then  we 
must  wonder  that  greed  and  graft  and  vast  and  un- 
scrupulous wealth  have  been  able  to  attain  to  the  pro- 
portions they  have  already  attained  in  our  midst.  But  the 
reason  abounds ;  and  later  we  shall  consider  it  fully. 

Certainly  one  of  the  great  central  facts  of  government, 
one  of  the  greatest  fundamental  principles  of  a  govern- 
ment of  freedom  and  intelligence,  is  the  insuring  of 
equal  'privileges  for  all  and  special  privileges  for  none. 
This  we  had  nominally,  at  least  in  the  nation,  but  in 
reality  a  very  small  fraction  of  this  proposition  is  true 
to-day,  and  we  are  witnessing  its  departure  from  among 
us  to-day  more  rapidly  than  ever  before.  If  this  con- 
tinues at  the  rate  it  has  been  going  on  during  the  past 
twenty  years  or  so,  and  at  the  rate  it  is  going  on  at  present 
it  will  be  but  a  short  time,  and  within  the  experience  of 
many  now  living,  until  it  will  be  that  the  "  equal  privi- 
leges and  opportunities  for  all  "  will  have  been  swallow- 
ed up  completely  by  the  special  privileges  and  the  con- 
sequent vast  accumulations  of  the  few. 

Life  in  no  country  can  be  happy  or  prosperous  or  at  all 
satisfying  where  special  privilege  reigns  and  one  great 
class  is  produced  that  becomes  simply  a  grist  for  another 
class.  The  loss  to  citizenship  is  so  enormous,  and  its 
influences  are  so  deadly  that  the  entire  nation  becomes 
so  thoroughly  diseased  politically  and  socially  and  its 
foundations  are  so  quietly  undermined,  that  before  it  is 
realized  the  nation  is  already  in  its  decline,  under  the 
workings  of  the  same  mighty  compelling  laws  that  have 

[98] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

never  yet  faltered  nor  delayed  in  decreeing  the  fate  of 
nations.  Each  for  all  and  all  for  each  was  the  mandate 
that  was  written  in  the  beginning,  and  as  long  even  as 
time  endures,  it  will  brook  no  change  nor  will  it  permit 
the  slightest  modification. 


[99] 


V 
A  GREAT  PEOPLE'S  MOVEMENT 

1  HE  greater  part  of  really  important  legislation  is  at 
present  for  the  benefit  of  the  great  corporate  and 
moneyed  interests.  Henceforth  the  greater  part  of  it 
must  be  for  the  people  —  the  great  common  people 
that  has  made  this,  and  every  country,  and  upon 
whose  welfare  ultimately  all  depends.  We  shall  have 
the  management  of  the  nation's  affairs  in  our  own 
hands  just  as  securely  and  just  as  quickly  as  we  really 
so  elect.  There  must  be  more  of  the  people's  men  in 
our  municipal,  our  state,  and  our  national  assemblies. 
A  rich  operator  in  Robert  Owen's  time,  held,  in  con- 
nection with  his  fellows,  that  they  could  not  afford 
to  dispense  with  child  labour  because  that  would  drive 
business  out  of  England.  The  "maudlin  sentimental- 
ism  of  those  who  knew  neither  business  nor  human 
nature,"  they  pronounced  all  legal  interference  with  child 
labour.  Yet  he,  according  to  his  own  admission,  had 
been  making  in  the  cotton  business  200  per  cent  in  yearly 
profits.  So  the  cries  will  go  up  to-day  when  the  people  be- 
gin to  redeem  the  country  and  its  resources  for  their  own 
common  use.  The  slightest  movement  that  aimsatcheck- 
ing  the  enormous  profits  that  are  being  reaped  from  the 
resources  that  should  belong  to  the  people  in  common,  is 
[100] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

even  now  being  met  with  that  same  cry.  The  number  of 
labour  disturbances  during  the  past  few  years  and  to-day 
is  in  part,  and  among  other  things,  the  measure  of  dissat- 
isfaction with  the  present  monopolistic  system.  It  does 
not  bring  justice  to  labour.  This,  all  thinking  and  right- 
feeling  men  are  realizing,  and  realizing  all  too  keenly. 

It  was  a  great  people's  movement  in  connection  with 
the  "Corn  Laws"  in  England,  in  Cobden's  time,  that 
brought  about  a  peaceable  revolution,  in  place  of  what 
would  have  easily  been  a  revolution  of  another  type. 

We  are  to  have  among  us  a  revolution,  a  great  and  a  very 
clear-cut  revolution,  but  a  great  people's  movement  in- 
sures that  it  will  be  an  evolutionary  revolution,  a  peaceable 
revolution,  but  no  less  marked  and  telling,  in  fact,  far 
more  telling  than  any  blood  revolution  can  possibly  be. 

In  an  intelligent  and  a  determined  political  action  on 
the  part  of  the  common  people  lies  our  safety ;  it  is  along 
this  path  that  we  must  move.  United  labour  is  beginning 
to  recognize  this.  It  was  but  a  short  time  ago  that  it 
was  carefully  avoided  by  organized  labour,  and  its  efforts 
were  more  along  what  is  commonly  known  as  mutual 
benefit  lines,  and  this  apart  from  all  thought  of  any  type 
of  political  action.  And  it  is  along  these  lines  that  the 
trust  and  combination  and  corporate  interests  wish 
even  now  it  would  be  kept.  What  a  power,  wisely  directed, 
this  great  and  splendid  body  can  become.  It  in  itself, 
if  sufficiently  discreet  and  sufficiently  patriotic  in  its 
desires  and  in  its  ways  of  voicing  them,  is  sufficient, 
through  the  great  balance  of  power  that  in  a  united 
form  it  can  hold,  to  bring  about  practically  any  type 
[101  J 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

of  public  administration  it  may  desire.  "In  political 
action  "  is  getting  more  and  more  to  be  the  watchword 
of  united  labour.  This,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that 
that  part  of  the  public  press  justly  called  the  "  capital- 
istic press,"  that  endeavours  to  make  the  public  believe 
otherwise,  is  the  great  good  that  is  being  accomplished 
by  an  intelligent  Labour  Party  in  Australia  and  New 
Zealand,  and  from  there  are  coming  many  instructive  les- 
sons that  we  here  can  most  profitably  study.  New  Zealand 
has  been  described  as  a  country  without  a  millionaire, 
without  a  pauper,  and  without  a  strike.  The  common 
people,  including  labour,  is  simply  compelling  fair  oppor- 
tunities for  all,  a  common-sense  justice,  and  as  a  result  a 
fairer  share  of  those  gifts  and  resources  of  the  country  that 
are  intended  for  all.  One  of  the  best  known  of  New 
Zealand's  legislators,  Hon.  W.  P.  Reeves,  in  connection 
with  their  purposes  has  said :  "  It  is  the  unconcealed 
object  of  our  social  legislation  to  make  democracy  consis- 
tent and  possible  —  to  create  conditions  out  of  which 
such  threatening  extremes  of  wealth-ownership  cannot 
grow. " 

Money  as  a  force  in  legislation,  used  as  it  is,  some- 
times almost  like  water  by  the  great  capitalistic  concerns 
in  their  carefully  studied  direct  and  indirect  ways,  in 
the  bribery  and  debauchery  of  public  officials,  is  an  evil 
of  such  a  wide-spread  nature  that  it  must  be  corrected 
by  the  people.  The  complaint  is  now  so  frequently 
heard,  that  the  people  do  not  get  a  fair  show.  It  is  true; 
but  it  is  also  true  that  it  is  our  own  fault  that  we  do  not. 
If  we  look  as  carefully  to  elections  and  appointments 
[102] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
as  the  great  moneyed  interests  do,  then  that  complaint 
will  forever  lose  its  force.  This  is  a  most  vital  fact  for 
our  great  farming  communities  to  learn,  almost  as  much 
or  even  more,  than  any  other  portion  of  our  people, 
because  in  some  respects  and  in  some  sections  conditions 
with  them  have  at  times  become  well-nigh  intolerable. 
We  must  recognize  once  and  for  all  the  fact  that  govern- 
ment is  always  as  good  as  tne  people  demand  it  should 
be.  "  No  King,  no  veriest  tyrant  ever  ruled  except  by  the 
will  of  the  people.  Because  the  popular  will  has  been 
ignorant  and  evil,  states  have  been  evil. "  I  think  in  the 
following  paragraphs  that  clear. thinking  and  far-seeing 
statesman,   the   late   Ex-Governor  Altgeld  of  Illinois, 
has    given    us    some    wonderfully    clear  and  thought- 
compelling  statements  along  this  line.  In  an  address 
before  the  American  Railway  Trainmen,  at  Galesburg, 
Illinois,  he  said : "  If  our  institutions  are  to  undergo  great 
change,  it  is  vital  that  the  men  of  America,  and  not  the 
money,  should  direct  the  change.  Money  may  be  a 
blessing  as  a  servant,  but  it  is  a  curse  as  a  master. 
Money  never  established  republican  institutions  in  the 
world.  It  has  no  natural  affinity  with  them,  and  does 
not  understand  them.  Money  has  neither  soul  nor  senti- 
ment. It  does  not  know  the  meaning  of  liberty,  and 
it  sneers  at  the  rights  of  man.  It  never  bled  on  the  battle- 
field in   time  of  war,  and  it  never  voluntarily   sought 
the  public  treasury  in  time  of  peace.    .     .     .     Men  in 
time  acquire  the  nature  of  those  things  which  absorb 
their  lives.  Unconsciously  and  invisibly  they  undergo  a 
change   until   those   things   which   occupy   their  daily 
[103] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

thoughts  seem  actually  to  circulate  in  their  veins. 
Consequently  in  all  countries,  in  all  ages,  and  among 
all  peoples,  it  has  been  found  that  as  a  rule  the  possessors 
of  great  wealth  were  not  the  patriots.  On  the  contrary, 
they  seemed  to  care  little  what  flag  floated  over  them, 
provided  it  was  a  flag  that  would  give  them  a  bayonet 
with  which  to  protect  their  gold.  The  men  who  in  the 
late  war  left  their  millions  of  hoarded  treasure  and 
shouldered  a  musket  to  fight  for  the  Union  were  as 
scarce  as  the  camels  that  have  passed  through  the  eye 
of  the  needle.  The  soldiers'  cemeteries  of  patriotic  dead 
are  filled  with  men  who  when  alive  had  to  struggle  for  a 
living.  It  is  the  great  masses  of  the  people  who  defend 
the  government  in  time  of  war,  and  who  bear  its  burdens 
in  time  of  peace,  and  these  alone  know  the  full  value 
of  free  institutions.  It  is  therefore  important  that  the 
destinies  of  our  government  should  be  shaped  by  this 
class,  and  they  can  be  relied  upon  to  do  justice  to 
capital.  They  appreciate  the  fact  that  capital  is  not  only 
a  convenience,  but  may  be  of  the  greatest  possible  use  to 
man  when  properly  directed.  While  money  may  have 
done  a  great  injustice  to  the  masses,  the  masses  have 
never  done  an  injustice  to  money. 

"  Now,  how  will  you  meet  these  problems  ?  Standing 
as  individuals  in  the  presence  of  mighty  combinations 
you  will  be  crushed  and  there  will  be  no  hope  for  you 
or  your  children.  I  can  see  no  other  course  for  you  than 
to  stand  together,  shoulder  to  shoulder,  intelligently 
and  patriotically.  A  great  force  never  holds  itself  in 
check,  whether  in  the  phenomena  of  nature,  in  politics, 
[104] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
in  government,  or  in  religion.  Only  a  counter  or  resisting 
force  will  check  it.  If  concentrated  capital  shall  meet 
with  no  checking  influence,  or  force,  then  republican 
institutions  must  come  to  an  end,  and  we  will  have  but 
two  classes  in  this  country,  an  exceedingly  wealthy 
class  on  one  hand,  and  a  spiritless,  crushed,  poverty- 
striken  labouring  class  on  the  other.  The  hope  of  the 
country  depends  upon  having  a  number  of  forces  that 
will  counterbalance  or  check  each  other.  And  in  this  con- 
nection let  me  suggest  to  you  that  the  world  has  pro- 
gressed to  a  point  where  intelligence  will  always  defeat 
brute  force,  and  any  method  of  contest  that  involves 
violence  belongs  to  a  bygone  age.  The  modern  methods 
of  warfare  in  society  are  of  an  entirely  different  character. 
You  complain  sometimes  that  you  do  not  get  a  fair  show, 
that  capital  controls  legislation,  that  by  selecting  the  can- 
didates for  the  judicial  offices,  it  in  many  cases  controls 
the  courts  and  that  the  same  is  true  in  the  execution  of  the 
laws.  But  you  have  yourselves  largely  to  blame.     .     .     . 
It  has  happened  frequently  in  the  past  in  this  State  and 
in  other  States  that  you  wanted  legislation  which  you 
thought  was  necessary  and  just,  and  you  supported  men 
for  the  legislature  whom  you  believed  were  honest,  but 
who,  as  soon  as  they  received  their  certificate  of  election, 
crept  up  the  rear  stairway  to  the  office  of  some  corpora- 
tion and  tendered  their  services  in  the  hope  of  obtaining 
some  financial  or  other  advantage.  Did  you  afterwards 
spot  those  men  as  being  unworthy  of  your  confidence  ? 
Not  at  all.  Their  chances  for  public  preferment  were 
just  as  good  thereafter  as  they  were  before.  Again,  cor- 
[105] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
porations  have  for  many  years  looked  after  the  matter 
of  selecting  judges,  especially  of  the  federal  courts.  They 
realized  the  fact  that  the  construction  of  the  laws  is  even 
more  important  than  the  making  of  laws,  and  to  have  a 
friend  on  the  bench  is  much  more  important  than  to 
have  a  lawmaker  at  the  capitol.  It  is  asserted  that  for 
a  quarter  of  a  century  no  man  has  been  appointed  to 
the  federal  bench  unless  he  was  either  a  corporation 
lawyer  or  was  known  to  hold  views  which  made  him 
satisfactory  to  those  interests,  and  when  these  judges 
afterwards  distorted  the  law  and  usurped  powers  to 
assist  corporations  and  smite  you,  they  were  not  neces- 
sarily corrupt.  They  were  simply  giving  force  to  pre- 
judices which  they  had  imbibed  during  their  former 
association  with  corporate  influences.  It  has  never  hap- 
pened in  this  country  that  you  or  any  other  organization 
of  labour  men  or  of  farmers  sent  a  delegation  to  wait  upon 
the  President  in  reference  to  the  appointment  or  re- 
jection of  any  particular  man  to  any  judicial  office. 
You  have  not  looked  after  your  interests  and  you  have 
no  right  to  complain  if  you  are  discriminated  against 
under  these  circumstances.  Every  man  who  seeks  office 
in  this  country  will  need  your  support,  and  once  let 
him  understand  that  you  are  capable  of  acting  intelli- 
gently and  standing  together,  and  that  you  insist  on  be- 
ing honestly  dealt  with,  and  you  will  see  a  great  change. 
Fall  in  with  what  is  the  spirit  of  the  times.  Practise 
intelligent  combination.  Move  along  the  lines  of  law 
and  of  justice  and  practise  foresight  and  you  will  be 
able  to  right  almost  any  grievance. 
[106] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

"  In  conclusion  let  me  say  that  you  and  the  labouring 
men  of  this  country  are  more  interested  in  maintaining 
republican  institutions  than  any  other  of  our  people. 
You  are  more  interested  in  making  the  stripes  and 
stars  stand  for  free  institutions  than  any  other  people 
in  this  country.  Wealth  has  always  courted  aristocracy 
and  bowed  to  monarchy.  It  is  manhood  alone  that  is 
interested  in  liberty  and  in  maintaining  those  con- 
ditions under  which  the  greatest  possible  opportunities 
are  opened  to  every  citizen  of  the  commonwealth. 
You  cannot  leave  your  children  millions  to  squander. 
It  is  therefore  important  for  you  to  endeavour  to  leave 
them  a  country  in  which  intelligent  and  honest  effort 
will  be  properly  rewarded  and  in  which  the  labourer  will 
not  only  be  worthy  of  his  hire,  but  will  have  open  to 
him  and  to  his  posterity  all  of  the  fields  of  honour  and 
the  paths  of  glory." 

A  nation  such  as  this  depends  solely,  for  its  welfare 
as  well  as  for  its  perpetuity,  upon  the  hearts  and  minds 
and  ambitions  of  its  people.  With  these  crushed  and 
traduced  by  monopoly  and  the  despoiler,  the  nation  is 
doomed  and  even  the  corporate  interests  themselves 
will  in  time  be  torn  to  pieces, 

To  trace  the  long  fight  for  political  freedom  which 
those  before  us  had  to  undergo,  shows  us  how  hopeful 
and  how  advantageous  our  position  is.  Had  we  not 
political  freedom  and  the  right  of  the  ballot  in  face  of 
these  rapidly  growing  concentrations  of  evil  among  us, 
our  position  would  be  well-nigh  hopeless.  As  it  is  we 
cannot  be  other  than  masters  of  this  critical  situation 
[107] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
if  we  come  but  speedily  to  a  realization  of  the  great 
forces  that  lie  within  our  reach,  and  if  we  use  them  as 
intelligent  freemen.  The  great  battle  that  must  now  be 
wao-ed  is  the  battle  for  economic  freedom,  for  equal 
opportunities,  for  justice  in  working  conditions,  for 
justice  in  legislation  and  administration. 

He  who  owns  or  controls  that  upon  which  others 
depend  owns  and  controls  them.  The  fundemantal  issue 
at  stake  is  justice  and  equal  opportunities,  a  more  equal 
justice  in  the  distribution  of  the  results  of  labour,  and 
a  using  for  all  the  people  o  those  great  natural  common 
resources  that  are  now  being  grabbed  and  monopolized 
and  used  for  the  enrichment  of  the  few. 

How  strange  our  position  is,  could  be  revealed  by  an 
estimate  of  the  millions  upon  millions  in  the  form  of 
natural  franchises  that  we  allow  to  be  taken  from  us 
each  year,  and  that  are  making  so  enormously  rich  the 
few  men  and  families  that  have  become  so  self -conceited 
as  they  roll  in  this  wealth,  and  then  to  make  a  com- 
parison of  the  immense  preponderance  of  the  voting 
power  of  the  people  over  this  relatively  small  number  — 
millions  compared  to  the  thousands.  But  they  have  been 
making  this  their  business.  Very  quietly,  while  the 
masses  of  the  people  have  been  going  about  their  own 
private  affairs,  they  have  been  getting  possession  of  and 
diverting  to  their  own  coffers  these  immensely  valuable 
concessions,  and  which  have  grown  more  enormous 
in  their  profits  as  the  country  has  grown  in  population 
and  the  needs  of  the  people  have  increased.  While  the 
people  have  been  farming  the  farms,  this  small  privileg- 
[108] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

ed  class,  as  an  able  writer  has  recently  put  it,  has  been 
"farming  the  farmers."  They  have  acted  upon  the  prin- 
ciple that  he  enunciates  in  speaking  of  their  methods 
as  follows  —  do  not  fool  yourself  while  there  are  other 
people  to  fool.  The  way  to  succeed  is  not  to  work,  but 
to  work  the  workers;  not  to  farm  the  farms,  but  to  farm 
the  farmers. 

And  how  even  now  money  is  trying  to  blind  the  eyes 
of  the  people  to  prevent  them  from  seeing  clearly  and 
taking  back  to  themselves  these  great  resources,  can 
be  seen  on  every  hand.  But  the  hour  has  struck  and  we 
are  on  the  move.  The  day  to  hesitate  or  to  delay  is 
passed.  Revelations  have  been  coming  so  rapidly  of  late, 
and  facts  so  momentous  in  their  import  are  becoming 
so  clear,  that  we  could  not  turn  back  even  if  we  would. 
Every  law  of  human  nature  and  human  development 
cries  out  against  it.  And  although  concentrated  wealth 
and  power  may  exert  every  influence  to  climb  and  to 
stifle  the  idea  of  greater  equality  and  justice,  the 
thoughts  and  the  voices  of  men  of  genius  and  insight 
are  up,  and  the  great  common  people  are  hearing  them 
over  and  over  again  giving  voice  and  sanction  to  their 
own  thoughts  and   rapidly   forming   conclusions. 

Attempts  to  do  something  for  men  by  philanthropy 
to  take  the  place  of  what  is  taken  away  from  or  what  is 
denied  them,  will  fail.  And  they  ought  to  fail.  No  manip- 
ulations of  this  sort  will  ever  take  the  place  of  justice. 
Justice  is  the  absolute  law,  and  it  will  compel  obedience 
to  itself  sooner  or  later.  The  enlightened  people  —  the 
people  of  the  great  nation  want  and  will  demand  con- 
[109] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

ditions  of  such  a  nature  that  they  can  build  with  the 
builder's  satisfaction  and  pleasure  their  own  art 
museums  and  libraries  and  institutions  of  learning. 
Not  benefactions,  but  what  by  right  belongs  to  one. 
What  belongs  to  labour  and  the  citizen  by  moral  right 
shall  be  made  so  in  fact  by  legal  right.  Nothing  short 
of  this  in  the  end  will  satisfy. 

"  Social  service,"  and  schemes  for"  social  betterment " 
are  good,  and  praiseworthy  in  their  place,  but  they  will 
never  be  accepted  as  taking  the  place  of  those  more 
essential  things  that  are  the  rightful  inheritance  of  the 
people,  nor  should  they. 

"  The  separation  between  the  owners  of  fixed  capital 
and  the  labourer  has  long  been  noted;  but  with  vast 
federated  plants,  managed  by  hired  intermediaries, 
it  is  unavoidable.  There  will  be  brave  attempts  to  meet 
the  difficulty  by  alluring  philanthropies,  by  'doing 
something  for  the  workingmen.'  If  merely  philanthropic, 
these  will  fail  as  they  deserve.  Benevolent  schemes 
that  bear  the  slightest  taint  of  charity  have  at  last  got 
the  contempt  of  the  intelligent  wage-earners. 

"Importunate,  and  never  again  to  be  silenced,  their 
demand  is  that  they  get  their  benefits,  not  as  gifts  or 
favours,  but  as  recognized  rights.  Philanthropies  are  a 
dangerous  substitute  for  honest  wage  payment,  shorter 
working  time,  and  increased  influence  over  the  con- 
ditions of  the  labour  contract.  What  may  be  called  the 
Great  Bluff  of  our  time  is  to  put  gratuities  and  bene- 
factions in  the  place  of  justice.  There  is  no  donation, 
however  gaudy,  that  can  fill  the  place  of  justice.  The 

nioi 


In  the  Fire  oj  the  Heart 

attempt  of  the  ruling  class  to  do  this  is  the  oldest  trick 
in  history.  It  was  the  opinion  of  a  Roman  emperor, 
'Magnificence  in  gifts  may  deceive  even  the  gods.' 
The  crowd  could  then  be  quieted  by  the  brutalities 
of  a  pageant,  the  butcheries  in  the  arena,  by  fleets  of 
stolen  grain  scattered  among  the  people,  as  a  Tammany 
heeler  scatters  gifts  and  personal  kindnesses  before  the 
election.  We  are  at  least  civilized  so  far  that  we  de- 
mand more  decorum,  and  a  certain  humanizing  of  our 
largesses.  They  must  bear  the  image  of  charity  and 
good-will  to  men.  They  must  be  educational,  artistic, 
and  in  all  ways  incentives  to  good  morals  and  religion. 

"  Now  it  would  be  both  untrue  and  offensive  to  deny 
that  these  later  bounties  are  vast  improvements  upon 
the  free  circus  of  Caligula.  No  wise  man  would  check 
a  generous  instinct  of  any  multi-millionaire.  The  books, 
pictures,  churches,  and  schools  take  their  places  among 
the  welfare  institutions  of  our  time.  They  are  influences 
which  deserve  the  honest  and  grateful  approval  of 
the  public. 

"  Yet  when  this  tribute  to  good  motive  and  good  re- 
sult has  been  paid,  the  story  is  not  finished.  We  are 
hoodwinked,  unless  we  see  that  there  ought  to  be,  and 
possibly  may  be,  a  still  better  way  than  this  to  acquire 
individual  and  social  morality.  The  sturdy  self-respect 
in  any  community  that  should  build  its  own  church, 
school,  library,  dispensary, —  paying  every  honest  bill 
as  it  goes, —  would  show  an  exhilarating  superiority 
before  which  everyone  of  us  would  hasten  to  pay  respect. 
We  must  be  grateful  to  our  princely  givers,  but  the 
[111] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

mistake  would  be  fatal  to  accept  this  method  of  splendid 
subsidies  as  a  finality.  What  we  really  want  is  the 
ability  and  the  instructed  will  to  pay  our  own  bills,  even 
if  the  pace  of  our  civilization  halts  a  little."  *  Excellent, 
and  nothing  in  the  quotation  more  suggestive  so  to 
speak,  than  the  last  phrase  —  "even  if  the  pace  of  our 
civilization  halts  a  little."  Why  should  we  be  proud  of 
mere  largeness  and  rapidity?  especially  as  it  does  not 
benefit  the  great  masses  of  the  people,  but  only  the  few, 
the  very  small  fraction.  But  upon  closer  examination 
the  fact  will  reveal  itself,  that  excessive  wealth  is  of  real 
value  to  no  man,  and  especially  when  gotten  by  means 
so  manifestly  unfair  and  so  morally  unjustifiable,  as 
the  great  portion  of  excessive  wealth  is  gotten  to-day. 
Give  me  neither  riches  —  great  wealth  —  nor  poverty, 
will  ever  be  the  desire  of  the  truly  wise,  but  give  me 
that  comfortable  amount  that  is  conducive  to  the  high- 
est, the  noblest,  the  most  useful,  and  consequently,  the 
most  happy  life. 

Justice,  not  gifts,  not  charity. 

There  is  a  spirit  in  the  American  people,  in  all  Saxon 
people,  that  rebels  against  the  proffer  of  gifts  and 
charity  as  an  equivalent  for  what  rightly  belongs  to 
them.  This  spirit  can  be  neither  changed  nor  broken 
until  at  least  the  present  unequal  distribution  of  wealth 
grows  to  such  an  extent,  that  it  results  in  the  concen- 
tration of  the  greater  portion  of  the  wealth  and  resources 
of  the  nation  in  so  few  hands,  that  the  poverty  of  the 
people  becomes    so  great,  that  the  spirit   of  freemen  is 

*"The  Social  Unrest,"  by  John  Graham  Brooks,  p.  203. 
[112] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

so  broken  that  they  sink  to  the  position  of  paupers  and 
public  wards. 

Said  Mr.  Lecky,  recently,  in  speaking  of  the  pros- 
perity of  nations  and  their  causes  as  indicated  by  history : 
"Its  foundation  is  laid  in  pure  domestic  life,  in  com- 
mercial integrity,  in  a  high  standard  of  moral  worth, 
and  of  public  spirit,  in  simple  habits,  in  courage,  up- 
rightness, and  a  certain  soundness  and  moderation  of 
judgment  which  spring  quite  as  much  from  character 
as  from  intellect.  If  you  would  form  a  wise  judgment  of 
the  future  of  a  nation,  observe  carefully  whether  these 
qualities  are  increasing  or  decaying.  Observe  especially 
what  qualities  count  for  most  in  public  life.  Is  character 
becoming  of  greater  or  less  importance?  Are  the  men 
who  obtain  the  highest  posts  in  the  nation,  men  of 
whom  in  private  life,  and  irrespective  of  party,  com- 
petent judges  speak  with  genuine  respect?  Are  they 
of  sincere  convictions,  consistent  lives,  indisputable 
integrity?  .  .  .  It  is  by  observing  this  moral  cur- 
rent that  you  can  best  cast  the  horoscope  of  a  nation."* 

This  social  unrest  that  has  been  vaguely  witnessed 
during  the  past  few  years,  increasing  yearly,  has  gradu- 
ally brought  the  people  to  a  definite  point  of  view  and 
to  a  definite  knowledge  of  facts.  Evolution  indeed  has 
been  doing  its  work  in  spite  of  the  rapid  aggressions  of 
the  immensely  rich,  over  against  which  has  been  set  the 
slowly  moving  discernment  of  the  people.  For  a  long 
time  there  was  unrest  coupled  with  a  sort  of  groping 
in  the  dark,  a  failure  to  understand  the  full  significance, 

*  'The  Political  Value  of  History,"  by  W.  E.  R.  Lecky. 
[113] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

let  alone  the  causes  of  this  great  unrest.  Back  of  it  all, 
however,  has  been  thought,  in  addition  to  feeling,  on 
the  part  of  the  people,  quickened  and  intensified  at 
times  by  most  bitter  experiences,  until  now  a  new  mental 
activity  is  born,  and  it  is  being  quickened  by  the  posses- 
sion of  some  clear-cut  and  wonderfully  significant  facts. 
A  little  time  now  spent  in  the  careful  study  and  elabora- 
tion of  methods,  and  the  great  battle  for  social,  industrial 
and  economic  freedom  is  fully  on,  and  greater  than  this 
and  one  fraught  with  a  greater  moment,  no  battle  has 
ever  been  waged  perhaps  in  the  entire  history  of  civili- 
zation. 

Says  Benjamin  Kidd,  in  the  closing  pages  of  his  very 
able  work,  "  Social  Evolution  " :  "  We  see  that,  under  all 
the  complex  appearances  our  Western  civilization 
presents,  the  central  process  working  itself  out  in  our 
midst  is  one  which  is  ever  tending  to  bring,  for  the  first 
time  in  the  history  of  the  race,  all  the  people  into  the 
competition  of  life  on  a  footing  of  equality  of  oppor- 
tunity. In  this  process  the  problem,  with  which  society 
and  legislators  will  be  concerned  for  long  into  the 
future,  will  be  how  to  secure  to  the  fullest  degree  these 
conditions  of  equality,  while  at  the  same  time  retaining 
that  degree  of  inequality  which  must  result  from  offering 
prizes  sufficiently  attractive  to  keep  up  within  the  com- 
munity that  state  of  stress  and  exertion,  without  which 
no  people  can  long  continue  in  a  high  state  of  social 
efficiency.  For  in  the  vast  process  of  change  in  progress 
it  is  always  the  conditions  of  social  efficiency,  and  not 
those  which  individuals  or  classes  may  desire  for  them- 
[114] 


In  the  Fire  of  tJie  Heart 

selves,  that  the  unseen  evolutionary  forces    at  work 
amongst  us  are  engaged  in  developing.     .     .     . 

"Nor  is  there  any  reason  why  the  great  social 
development  proceeding  in  our  civilization  which  has 
been  but  feebly  and  inadequately  described  in  the 
preceding  chapters,  should  be  viewed  with  distrust  by 
those  of  more  conservative  instincts  amongst  us  who 
profess  to  have  at  heart  the  highest  interests  of  humanity. 
The  movement  which  is  uplifting  the  people  —  neces- 
sarily to  a  large  extent,  at  the  expense  of  those  above 
them  —  is  but  the  final  result  of  a  long  process  of  organic 
development.  All  anticipations  and  forebodings  as  to 
the  future  of  the  incoming  democracy,  founded  upon 
comparisons  with  the  past,  are  unreliable  or  worthless. 
For  the  world  has  never  before  witnessed  a  democracy 
of  the  kind  that  is  now  slowly  assuming  supreme  power 
amongst  the  Western  peoples.  To  compare  it  with 
democracies  which  held  power  under  the  ancient  em- 
pires is  to  altogether  misunderstand  both  the  nature  of 
our  civilization  and  the  character  of  the  forces  that  have 
produced  it.  ...  The  fact  of  our  time  which 
overshadows  all  others  is  the  arrival  of  Democracy.  But 
the  preception  of  the  fact  is  of  relatively  little  importance 
if  we  do  not  also  realize  that  it  is  a  new  Democracy.  There 
are  many  who  speak  of  the  new  ruler  of  nations  as  if  he 
were  the  same  idle  Demos  whose  ears  the  dishonest  cour- 
tiers have  tickled  from  time  immemorial.  It  is  not  so. 
Even  those  who  attempt  to  lead  him  do  not  yet  quite 
understand  him.  Those  who  think  that  he  is  about  to 
bring  chaos  instead  of  order,  do  not  rightly  apprehend  the 
[115  J 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

nature  of  his  strength.  They  do  not  perceive  that  his 
arrival  is  the  crowning  result  of  an  ethical  movement 
in  which  qualities  and  attributes,  which  we  have  been 
all  taught  to  regard  as  the  very  highest  of  which  human 
nature  is  capable,  find  the  completest  expression  they 
have  ever  reached  in  the  history  of  the  race." 

Such  indeed  is  the  opinion  of  many  other  clear  and 
disinterested  thinkers  in  addition  to  that  of  the  able 
author  of  "Social  Evolution."  A  great  people's  move- 
ment to  bring  back  to  the  people  the  immense  belong- 
ings that  have  been  taken  away  from  them,  and  to 
prevent  a  continuance  of  this  from  now  on,  is  the  supreme 
need  of  the  time.  Slowly  and  almost  gropingly  we  have 
been  leading  up  to  it,  but  the  incentive  is  on,  the  knowl- 
edge underlying  its  cause  is  increasing  and  never  so 
rapidly  as  of  late.  There  is  no  power  now  that  can  stop  it 
or  even  materially  hinder  it  any  more  than  human  power 
can  hinder  or  prevent  the  workings  of  any  of  nature's 
great  laws.  It  is  indeed  most  glorious  to  be  alive,  to 
witness  and  to  have  a  hand  in  the  culmination  of  this 
new  order  of  life  that  all  the  centuries  have  been  leading 
up  to. 


[116] 


VI 
PUBLIC  UTILITIES  FOR  THE  PUBLIC  GOOD 

IT  is  strange  how  long  and  how  heavily  we  allow  our- 
selves to  be  fleeced,  or  robbed,  by  custom.  Because  we 
commence  a  thing  in  a  certain  way,  is  many  times  the 
reason  we  continue  it  in  that  way  long  after  it  could  be 
changed  to  our  great  advantage.  Because  we  began  that 
way  we  are  still  living  and  acting  under  the  delusion  that 
great  public  utilities,  the  value  of  which  is  caused  by  all 
the  people  in  common,  instead  of  being  managed  by,  and 
for  the  benefit  of  the  people,  should  be  managed  for  the 
private  benefit  and  the  enrichment  of  an  individual  or  little 
groups  of  individuals  called  companies  or  corporations. 
It  is  a  delusion  something  akin  to  the  belief,  which, 
according  to  Charles  Lamb,  so  long  held  sway  among 
the  Chinese  when  the  savour  of  roast  pork  had  been 
accidently  discovered  through  the  burning  down  of 
Ho-ti's  hut,  that,  in  order  to  cook  a  pig  it  was  necessary 
to  set  fire  to  a  house.  By  and  by,  however,  they  found 
that  that  method  was  not  only  crude  and  wasteful,  but 
also  uncertain  in  its  results.  But  until  a  Chinese  sage 
came  forward  and  invented  a  rude  type  of  gridiron 
which,  according  to  Lamb's  interesting  dissertation,  was 
the  forerunner  of  the  spit  and  the  oven,  no  one  had  ever 
thought  of  a  pig  being  roasted  without  the  burning 
[117] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

down  of  a  hut,  or  were  it  for  one  better  circumstanced, 
a  house.  They,  therefore,  had  to  follow  the  only  method 
they  knew.  With  us,  however,  in  connection  with  the 
supplying  of  certain  great  common  needs  it  is  different; 
for  there  are  other  methods  of  which  we  already  know, 
that  indeed  have  been  known  and  have  been  in  success- 
ful operation  in  other  countries  far  more  progressive 
in  this  regard  than  we,  for  more  than  a  score  and  in 
some  cases,  for  more  than  two  score  of  years.  The  only 
excuse  I  can  see  is  that  in  having  begun  in  a  very  crude 
and  thoughtless  and  expensive  way,  we  have  not  been 
bright  enough,  or  energetic  enough  as  yet,  to  find  and 
adopt  a  more  common-sense  and  satisfactory  way. 

At  one  period  in  the  development  of  our  national  and 
municipal  life  there  may  have  been  a  reason  for  allow- 
ing these  common  necessities  to  be  dealt  with  by  private 
individuals  or  private  companies.  There  may  have  been 
a  good  or  at  least  a  satisfactory  reason  for  this  method 
when  our  proportions  were  small  and  our  needs  were  not 
so  great  and  not  so  complex,  when  it  meant  giving  over  to 
individuals  not  such  vast  amounts  that  should  be  used 
for  the  advantage  of  all  the  people,  and  when  the  oppor- 
tunities for  getting  these  great  advantages  away  from 
the  people  through  political  corruption  and  debauchery 
were  not  so  great  as  they  are  to-day.  So  there  may  have 
been  a  reason  in  the  beginning,  but  the  basis  for  that 
reason  has  now  passed.  This  method  may  have  been 
even  right  at  one  time  —  though  this  in  common  with 
many  I  question  —  it  is  no  longer  right  now.  And  the 
fact  that  we  are  beginning  now  to  think  so  rapidly  along 
[118] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

the  lines  of  a  saner  and  a  better  way  indicates  that  the 
method  in  vogue  so  long  has  more  than  seen  its  day. 
Nevertheless,  although  our  awakening  has  been  tardy, 
our  advance  will  be  rapid. 

It  is  the  people  —  the  people  in  common  —  that  make 
valuable  those  enormously  rich  franchises  that  have 
been  given  over  to  individuals  for  their  private  en- 
richment, in  the  form,  to  deal  first  with  the  city  —  of 
light  and  heat  and  transportation  and  telephone  privi- 
leges, not  to  mention  the  various  other  ones  at  present. 
It  is  not  only  the  people,  but  to  state  it  still  more  con- 
cretely, it  is  the  very  needs  of  the  people  that  give  them 
their  enormous  values,  and  it  is  through  these  that  their 
enormous  profits  are  secured.  If  this  be  true,  why  then 
should  not  these  great  interests  be  conducted  by  and  for 
the  benefit  of  the  people,  instead  of  by  and  for  the  enrich- 
ment of  a  few  private  individuals  ?  Especially  as  under 
our  system  of  enormously  rich  gifts  to  these  individuals 
or  groups  of  individuals,  and  their  conducting  these 
enterprises  with  no  thought  of  the  public  welfare  but  with 
the  one  thought  of  the  greatest  amount  of  profit  for  them- 
selves, first,  last,  and  all  the  time,  we  have  been  having 
for  years  and  are  still  having  along  these  lines  as  poor  a 
service  with  the  highest  costs,  and  the  greatest  amount 
of  evil  and  abuses,  as  any  country  in  the  entire  world. 

As  long,  moreover,  as  any  of  the  utilities  that  are  public 
necessities  and  that  from  their  very  nature  should  be 
conducted  by  and  in  the  interests  of  the  people,  are 
allowed  to  be  run  for  private  gain,  this  condition  of 
affairs  will  continue  to  exist. 

[119] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

With  all  our  progress  along  other  lines,  it  is  almost 
universally  understood  that  the  conduct  of  our  muni- 
cipal affairs  in  the  United  States  has  been  among  the 
most  backward  and  costly  and  degraded  and  unsatis- 
factory of  any  in  the  entire  civilized  world. 

In  the  conduct  of  these  affairs  we  are  far  behind  all 
such  countries  as  Germany,  England,  France,  Norway, 
Sweden,  Belgium,  not  to  go  through  almost  the  entire 
list  of  civilized  and  progressive  nations.  It  seems  to  me 
clearly  evident  that  from  the  very  nature  of  the  case 
we  cannot  do  violence  to  the  principle  —  "  That  which 
the  people  collectively  create  they  should  collectively 
own,"  without  suffering  this  as  a  result.  Moreover, 
we  shall  never  reach  the  highest  state  in  municipal  or 
even  in  state  or  national  administration,  until  we  recog- 
nize and  act  upon  the  principle  —  what  the  people 
can  do  best  for  themselves,  that,  through  their  agent, 
the  government,  they  should  do.  They  should  not,  there- 
fore, permit  purely  governmental  functions  to  be  seized 
and  to  be  exploited  by  individuals  and  corporations. 

There  must,  therefore,  not  only  be  blows  struck  that 
will  forever  put  an  end  to  the  giving  over  to  individuals 
of  these  great  common  properties  of  the  people,  but 
there  must  also  be,  to  use  the  words  of  one  of  our  fore- 
most American  editors,*  "The  recovery  to  the  people 
of  all  franchises  belonging  to  the  people,  but  diverted 
from  public  to  private  uses,  by  the  purchase  of  corpora- 
tions and  individuals,  corruptly  working  through  state 
and  municipal  legislatures. " 

*  Henry  Watterson  —  The  Louisville  Courier  Journal. 
[120] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

To  our  present  method  is  to  be  attributed  the  almost 
unbelievable  amount  of  graft  and  bribery  and  corruption 
that  has  become  so  rampant  among  us  of  late  and  that 
has  been  steadily  swelling  in  its  volume  during  the  pass- 
ing of  the  years.  "  Nothing, "  says  one  editor  of  another 
of  our  foremost  papers,  "  has  conduced  so  greatly  to 
graft  and  bribery7  in  municipal  and  state  affairs  as  the 
fact  that  franchises  of  enormous  value  for  public  utilities 
are  to  be  obtained  by  favour  of  certain  officials.  Give  the 
streets  back  to  the  city  and  this  element  of  corruption 
is  at  once  eliminated.  "  Continuing  —  it  was  an  editorial 
on  the  significance  of  the  great  and  splendid  vote  recent- 
ly given  by  the  people  of  Chicago  in  their  determination 
to  drive  from  their  midst  all  further  domination  on  the 
part  of  the  Rapid  Transit  Companies,  their  determina- 
tion to  come  into  complete  possession  of  their  transit 
facilities  and  to  conduct  them  for  their  own  benefit  — 
the  writer  said  : 

"  What  Chicago  has  done  New  York  can  do,  though 
on  the  very  day  the  Western  city  scored  its  victory  we  of 
New  York  were  called  upon  to  face  a  defeat.  The  same 
agencies  that  waged  war  on  Judge  Dunne  and  what  he 
stood  for  killed  the  Elsberg  Bill  in  the  New  York  Legis- 
lature ;  and  though  that  measure  —  designed  to  prevent 
any  more  scandals  such  as  the  gift  of  the  people's  Subway 
to  August  Belmont  —  had  the  endorsement  of  ever}7  New 
York  civic  organization  interested  in  the  cause  of  good 
government,  and  was  openly  opposed  only  by  theBelmont 
combination  and  the  unrepresentative  Rapid  Transit 
Commission,  it  was  beaten  in  the  Senate  at  Albany. 
[121] 


In  the  Fire  oj  the  Heart 

"  The  triumph  in  Chicago  and  the  disaster  in  New 
York  simply  mean  that  though  a  legislature  may  be 
influenced  to  favour  special  privilege  at  the  expense  of  the 
people,  the  people  themselves  can  neither  be  bought  by  a 
corrupt  lobby  nor  driven  by  bosses  working  for  their 
peculiar   interests. " 

If  we  take  entirely  away  from  private  gain  those  great 
public  service  utilities,  then  we  at  once  strike  the  axe  at 
the  roots  of  the  larger  share  of  the  source  of  our  political 
corruption  and  debauchery  for  which,  especially  in 
municipal  matters,  we  stand  as  the  most  notorious 
nation  in  the  entire  world.  As  lovers  of  free  institutions 
and  of  ordinary  public  honesty  and  decency,  this  end 
alone,  is  of  sufficient  importance  to  demand  of  us  such 
a  course,  to  say  nothing  of  the  enormous  gains  otherwise. 
The  fact  that  both  city  and  state  legislation  is  so  domi- 
nated by  great  accumulated  wealth  and  by  corporations, 
especially  public  service  corporations,  indicates  that  our 
prevailing  methods  are  not  healthy,  and  that  this  great 
menace  to  free  institutions,  and  to  a  government  for 
and  by  the  people,  should  be  speedily  removed. 

A  matter  of  such  vital  importance  to  the  national  and 
individual  welfare  as  the  public  ownership  and  control 
of  all  public  utilities  is  worthy  of  a  most  detailed  con- 
sideration, more  than  we  shall  be  able  to  give  it  in  so 
limited  a  space.  It  is  to  become,  as  it  is  so  rapidly  be- 
ginning now,  one  of  the  paramount  questions  in  the 
policies  of  the  American  nation. 

I  think  there  is  perhaps  no  better  way  of  proceeding 
to  a  consideration  of  the  argument  in  favour  of  such  a 
[122] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
method  of  supplying  our  needs  and  necessities  than  by 
considering  first,  what  has  been  accomplished  in  this 
line  in  the  municipalities  of  other  countries,  and  with 
what  results.  Many  times  a  long  and  detailed  argument 
that  a  certain  thing  cannot  be  done,  is  best  met  by 
showing  that  it  already  has  been  or  is  being  done,  and 
most  successfully. 

On  account  of  the  general  characteristics  and  con- 
ditions there  being  probably  more  nearly  akin  to  our 
own,  shall  we  look  in  the  direction  of  Great  Britain 
first. 

I  think  we  cannot  do  better  at  this  point  than  con- 
sider some  facts  as  presented  by  Mr.  John  Martin,* 
whose  statistics  in  connection  with  Great  Britain  are 
vouched  for  by  the  British  Imperial  Board  of  Trade. 
These  facts  and  figures  I  shall  give  exactly  as  they  were 
presented  by  Mr.  Martin  himself,  f  After  speaking  of  the 
various  small  beginnings  along  these  lines  that  we  have 
made  here,  he  continues,  "  Driven  to  desperation  by  the 
cobra-like  voracity  of  the  lighting  trust,  New  York  is 
erecting  a  plant  to  light  its  streets  and  public  buildings 
(nothing  for  private  consumers  yet),  and  so  is  begin- 
ning to  toddle  like  a  babe  in  those  paths  of  business 
thrift  in  which  we  shall  see  that  European  cities  have 
been  running  like  athletes  for  decades. 

*  Mr.  Martin  was  formerly  a  member  of  the  Hackney  Borough 
Council,  London.  He  is  now  a  resident  of  New  York,  where  he  is 
well-known  as  a  writer  and  an  authority  on  Municipal  Problems,  and 
as  an  effective  worker  along  the  lines  of  clean  politics. 

t  Proceedings  of  the  Annual  Conference  on  Good  City  Government, 
held  by  the  National  Municipal  League  at  New  York,  1905. 

[123] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

"  How  different  has  been  the  record  abroad !  We  are 
thirty  years  behind  the  cities  of  Great  Britain  and  Ger- 
many. And  from  the  beginning  they  were  more  business- 
like than  we  are  even  now.  To  them  it  would  seem  the 
height  of  economic  folly  to  forbid  a  city  to  supply  electric 
light  to  householders  and  to  allow  a  private  monopoly 
to  retain  its  extortionate  prices  for  them  while  the  mu- 
nicipality sought  relief  by  multiplying  wires  and  dynamos 
for  itself.  The  355  localities  of  the  United  Kingdom  and 
the  numerous  German  cities  which  own  and  run  electric 
lighting  plants,  hold  the  monopoly  in  their  districts. 
Competition  being,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  impossible, 
the  city  holds   the  field. 

"The  same  with  the  gas-works  in  the  two  countries. 
Thrifty  business  management  requires  that  somebody 
shall  hold  a  monopoly,  and  political  sense  requires  that 
that  somebody  shall  be  the  city  itself.     .     .     . 

"  No  less  that  260  cities  —  Great  Britain  —  supply 
their  whole  population  with  gas-light  and  power.  .  .  . 
They  charge  on  an  average,  taking  large  and  small,  those 
distant  from  and  those  near  to  coal  fields  all  together, 
sixty-four  cents  a  thousand  cubic  feet  for  gas.  Therefore 
the  consumer  is  benefited,  for  the  private  companies, 
on  an  average,  taken  in  the  same  way,  charge  a  little  over 
seventy  cents.  What  they  would  charge  were  they  not 
held  in  check  by  municipal  competition  Cousin  Jona- 
than could  tell  John  Bull. 

"  Has  the  taxpayer  been  mulcted  to  make  up  ?  No, 
indeed.  The  net  revenue  has  been  7  per  cent  on  the 
capital,  and,  if  anything,  the  taxpayer  had  been  too  well 
[124] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

cared  for.  In  Manchester  he  received  $350,000  last  year 
to  help  to  pay  for  the  schools,  etc.,  the  price  of  gas  being 
sixty  cents;  in  Leicester  he  got  $190,000  with  gas  at  fifty- 
six  cents,  and  in  the  other  places  lesser  sums  in  propor- 
tion to  their  size  and  the  success  of  the  management. 

"  And  the  workman  ?  He  has  not  been  forgotten ;  for 
everywhere  he  gets  slightly  higher  wages  than  he  would 
from  a  private  corporation  and  somewhat  more  generous 
treatment  with  respect  to  hours  and  holidays. 

"Electric  lighting  tells  the  same  tale.  While  I  am 
writing  this  there  comes  a  return  compiled  by  the  London 
County  Council  showing  that  the  fourteen  local  authori- 
ties in  the  metropolitan  district  which  supply  electric 
light,  sell  it  at  an  average  of  slightly  less  than  eight  cents 
a  kilowatt  hour,  nearly  20  per  cent  less  than  corpora- 
tions charge  in  adjacent  districts,  and  nearly  half  as 
much  as  submissive  New  Yorkers  pay.  And  yet,  after 
paying  all  expenses  and  the  interest  on  the  debt  they  had 
a  surplus  of  $1,244,515.  Clearly  they  understand  the 
notion  of  thrift  in  production;  they  do  not  regard  every 
city  department  as  a  spending  agency. 

"  Space  fails  me  to  tell  the  details  of  the  electric  light 
works  of  the  323  local  authorities  in  the  United  King- 
dom with  their  approximate  capital  of  $150,000,000, 
and  of  the  numerous  similar  examples  in  Germany. 
Their  success  is  sufficiently  indicated  by  the  fact  that 
after  the  most  virulent  attacks  have  been  made  on  them 
in  the  last  four  years,  supported  by  a  group  of  corpora- 
tion representatives  from  America  who  went  as  kindly 
missionaries  to  point  out  to  Britishers  what  a  terribly 
[125] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

wicked  mistake  their  municipalities  were  making,  after 
a  long  investigation  by  Parliament  and  a  vigorous  de- 
fence by  the  highest  and  most  influential  administrators 
in  the  Kingdom,  not  only  has  there  been  no  cessation  of 
municipal  activity,  but  it  is  steadily  increasing.  Mean- 
while the  corps  of  anxious  Americans  who  thought  they 
could  fool  the  slow-witted  Britishers  into  the  adoption  of 
American  ways,  have  been  sent  home  routed  and  label- 
led 'Physician,    heal    thyself.' 

"Still  more  remarkable,  especially  to  those  belted 
Spencerians  who  piously  believe  that  a  government  is 
congenitally  incapable  of  managing  a  business  enter- 
prise, must  be  the  record  of  the  street  railway  achieve- 
ments abroad.  For  a  change  of  air,  let  us  leap  the  North 
Sea  and  travel  to  Berlin. 

"  Berlin's  most  illuminating  experience  has  been  with 
her  street  railways.  In  1898,  in  order  to  get  the  lines 
electrified,  the  city  granted  a  charter  for  twenty-one 
years,  with  these  provisions  included:  1.  Workmen  to 
have  a  ten-hour  day.  2.  Waiting-rooms  at  transfer  sta- 
tions to  be  erected  and  to  be  kept  warmed  and  lighted. 
3.  Uniform  fare  for  the  whole  length  of  each  line  to  be 
2.38  cents.  4.  Eight  per  cent  of  the  gross  profits,  plus 
half  the  net  profits  over  12  per  cent  on  the  old  capital 
and  6  per  cent  on  the  new  capital,  to  be  paid  to  the 
city.  5.  At  the  end  of  the  lease  all  the  lines  and  the 
rolling  stock  to  become  the  property  of  the  city. 

"  Please  bear  in  mind  these  terms,  made  by  a  govern- 
ment of  taxpayers,  when  we  consider,  later,  the  action 
of  the  New  York  Rapid  Transit  Commission. 
[126] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

"Berlin's  bureaucracy  is  as  able  and  honest  as  any 
in  the  world,  and  it  worked  as  well  as  officials  ever  can 
to  keep  the  corporation  to  the  terms  of  its  bargain.  In 
addition,  an  association  of  citizens  was  formed  to  watch 
and  fight.  But  even  then  the  trouble  involved  in  protecting 
the  citizens  from  the  universal  tendency  of  franchise 
corporations  to  evade  their  obligations  was  so  harassing 
that  after  a  few  months  this  council  of  taxpayers  decided 
that  no  more  franchises  should  be  granted,  and  that  the 
city  should  enter  the  railway  business.  A  short  strategic 
line  which  happened  to  be  obtainable  was  bought, 
other  lines  were  built,  and  now  the  government  is  an 
active  competitor  and  is  ready  to  take  advantage  of 
every  franchise  as  it  expires.     . 

"No  less  than  162  localities  in  Britain  have  shown 
ability,  enterprise  and  foresight  enough  to  take  over  and 
manage  their  own  street-car  lines.  Among  them  are 
London,  Liverpool,  Manchester,  Glasgow,  Birmingham, 
Hull,  Newcastle,  Nottingham,  Halifax,  Leeds,  Sheffield, 
Aberdeen,  Brighton,  Dundee,  Yarmouth,  Belfast  and 
Rochdale.  All  of  them  are  so  well  satisfied  with  the 
results  in  lower  fares  for  the  passenger,  better  conditions 
for  the  workman  and  profits  for  the  taxpayers,  that 
no  party  is  even  in  existence  which  advocates  the  re- 
surrender  of  any  system  to  a  private  corporation.  The 
mere  whisper  of  such  a  proposal  would  be  a  request 
for  political  execution  and  burial.     .     .     . 

"  London  owns  the  surface  lines  both  north  and  south 
of  the  Thames.  Those  on  the  north  side,  in  a  fit  of 
lukewarmness,  when  for  one  term  the  Progressive  and 
[127] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

Moderate  parties  were  evenly  balanced,  and  to  the 
present  regret  of  the  population  served  by  them,  are 
leased  for  operation  to  a  corporation  on  terms  remun- 
erative to  the  government,  but  obstructive  to  improve- 
ment. The  city  has  electrified  its  lines;  the  corporation 
refuses  to  follow  suit.  So  much  for  that  superior  cor- 
poration enterprise  of  which  we  hear  ad  nauseam. 

"  During  the  eight  years  of  municipal  ownership 
these  returns  have  been  secured.  On  the  lines  worked 
by  the  council,  44  per  cent  of  the  passengers  pay  one- 
cent  fares,  43  per  cent  pay  two  cents,  8  per  cent  three 
cents,  4  per  cent  four  cents,  and,  to  compensate  for  the 
99  per  cent  of  the  passengers  who  pay  less  than  our 
straight  five-cent  rate,  just  one  poor  soul,  who  wishes 
to  travel  the  whole  length  of  the  line,  has  to  pay  six  cents. 

"In  those  years,  despite  the  increases  of  wages,  the 
annual  holidays  and  the  day's  rest  per  week  given  to 
employees,  the  street  railways  have  contributed  $1,465,- 
000  to  the  general  city  treasury,  $1,670,000  in  reduction 
of  the  debt  on  the  lines,  $330,000  as  a  renewal  and 
reserve  fund  for  the  southern  system,  $450,000  for  taxes 
on  the  southern  system  during  the  last  six  years,  and 
$630,000  in  reduction  of  debt  from  proceeds  of  sale  of 
horses,  etc. " 

In  addition  to  the  extremely  low  fares  that  are  paid 
in  German  cities  for  street-car  service,  and  with  far 
better  and  cleaner  and  more  up-to-date  cars  than  we 
have  —  with  a  rare  exception  here  and  there  —  there 
is  this  noticeable  difference.  There  the  number  of  seats 
each  car  contains  is  posted  in  clear  and  artistic  form 
[128] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

in  the  interior,  and  each  seat  has  its  number  just  above 
it.  As  soon  then  as  all  seats  are  taken  no  more  passen- 
gers are  permitted  to  enter,  but  a  sufficient  number  of 
cars  is  run  to  provide  a  seat  —  that  which  the  payment 
of  a  fare  always  implies  —  for  every  man,  woman  and 
child.  It  makes  a  difference  whether  a  matter  is  con- 
ducted for  the  comfort  and  convenience  of  its  patrons 
or  for  the  deliberate  purpose  of  extracting  from  them 
the  last  possible  penny,  giving  many  times  in  return  an 
accommodation  that  we,  had  we  the  civic  pride  and  the 
sense  of  justice  that  we  —  and  I  had  almost  said,  above 
all  people  —  should  have,  would  not  put  up  with  more 
than  the  number  of  days  absolutely  required  to  bring 
about  the  change. 

Compare  the  German  citizens'  two-cent  fare  and  his 
guaranteed  seat  and  clean  and  artistic  accommodations 
with  our  five-cent  fare,  even  if  for  half  a  dozen  blocks, 
with  our  many  times  rattling  cars,  sometimes  even  junk 
when  they  are  bought,  and  our  almost  equal  chances 
that  for  this  excessive  fare  we  will  get  in  exchange  a 
strap  to  hang  onto  in  common  with  a  number  of  people 
standing  equal  to  or  sometimes  greater  than  the  number 
that  the  management  deigns  to  accommodate  with  seats, 
and  all  the  discomfort  this  means  on  entering  or  leaving 
the  car.  Many  times  merely  room  to  stand  upon  a  plat- 
form is  all  they  will  permit  us  to  have,  and  for  a  fare  that 
is  at  least  twice  as  high  as  it  should  be  even  for  the  best 
sitting  accommodations. 

They  are  thirsty  lesches,  these  owners  and  managers 
of  our  public  service  corporations.  But  it  is  because  we 
[129] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

permit  it.  Their  blood-sucking  propensities  seem  never 
to  be  satisfied  nor  do  they  decrease,  but  by  virtue  of  a 
great  natural  law  they  are  ever  on  the  increase.  And 
again,  because  we  permit  and  stand  it. 

There,  one  finds  almost  without  exception,  vestibuled 
cars  for  the  protection  and  comfort  of  their  motormen. 
This  portion  of  their  citizenship  is  looked  after  the  same 
as  all  others.  But  here  it  is  scarcely  ever  that  the  manage- 
ment of  the  roads  adopts  this  plan  voluntarily,  and 
when  the  demand  of  ordinary  decency  and  fairness  takes 
a  measure  to  the  legislature  compelling  it,  the  com- 
pany's representatives  are  there  with  their  money  and 
their  lobby  to  defeat  it  in  common  with  practically 
every  measure  looking  to  the  comfort  and  welfare  and 
safety  of  those  the  public  service  corporation  is  supposed 
to  serve. 

The  winter  just  passed  but  one  was  a  frightful  one  in 
the  amount  of  suffering  these  men  had  to  undergo,  and 
who  for  the  most  effective  service  as  well  as  for  the  public 
safety,  should  be  kept  always  at  their  best.  In  New  York 
City  alone  it  caused  the  death  or  resulted  in  the  under- 
mining of  the  health  of  many  a  poor  fellow.  They  are 
sometimes  scorpions,  these  owners  and  managers  of  our 
public  service  corporations,  for  they  sting  to  the  death 
in  their  excessive  and  unchecked  greed  for  gain.  But  we, 
the  common  citizens,  are  not  free  from  guilt;  for  in- 
directly we  also  had  a  hand  in  this  frightful  amount  of 
suffering  that  resulted  more  than  once  in  death,  and 
that  brought  sadness  and  want  to  those  dependent  upon 
their  breadwinner;  for  we  are  dwellers  in  a  country  of 
[130] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

democratic  institutions  where  the  people  are  responsible 
for  the  conditions  that  prevail  among  them. 

In  the  matter  of  the  municipal  ownership  and  manage- 
ment of  public  utilities,  we  have  heard  much  of  late 
of  Glasgow,  and  not  without  reason.  The  people  of 
Glasgow  have  stood  among  the  most  fearless  and  the 
most  successful  in  managing  for  themselves  their  public 
utilities.  It  has  been  a  long  time  since  the  franchise 
grabber  has  been  able  to  exploit  the  people  there.  The 
people  of  Glasgow,  strange  to  say,  prefer  to  keep  for 
themselves  the  millions  of  dollars  their  public  utilities 
return  each  year,  instead  of  handing  them  over  to  a  little 
group  of  capitalists,  foreigners  many  times,  and  whose 
only  interest  is  to  take  from  the  city  the  largest  amount 
of  tribute  it  can  exact.  For  over  thirty-five  years,  or  since 
1869,  Glasgow  has  owned  its  own  gas-works.  As  a  result, 
its  people  pay  fifty-three  cents  per  thousand  feet  for  gas. 
Its  municipal  electricity  is  supplied  at  five  and  one-half 
cents  per  kilowatt  hour.  All  the  markets  are  owned  by 
the  city.  Private  slaughter-houses  were  abolished  many 
years  ago  and  the  city  is  now  supplied  by  three  central 
establishments.  From  Lake  Katrine  in  the  Trossachs 
it  brings  its  splendid  water  supply.  The  Water  Depart- 
ment also  supplies  hydraulic  power. 

In  addition  to  its  hospitals,  its  parks,  its  art  galleries, 
museums,  libraries,  botanic  gardens,  art  schools,  techni- 
cal schools,  etc.,  it  has  also  its  winter  gardens,  its  free 
concerts,  facilities  for  golf  and  other  games,  gymnasia 
and  playgrounds  for  the  children.  It  has  also  homes  for 
the  children  of  widows  and  widowers;  it  has  depots  for 
[131] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
the  supply  of  sterilized  milk  to  poor  children.  "It," 
says  Robert  Donald,  editor  of  the  London  Chronicle, 
"was  the  persistency  of  Glasgow  that  broke  down  the 
private  telephone  monopoly  in  Great  Britain,  encourag- 
ed other  municipalities  to  establish  their  own  system, 
and  has  now  led  to  the  complete  nationalization  of  the 
whole  service." 

Speaking  of  Glasgow's  municipal  tramways,  Mr. 
Donald  says :  "  It  will  be  interesting  to  state  the  effect  of 
municipal  ownership,  and  to  explain  the  policy  which 
guided  the  City  Council.  The  company  —  as  all  private 
enterprises  must  do  —  kept  mainly  in  view  immediate 
profits.  Like  most  British  companies,  it  pursued  a  nar- 
row policy.  The  keynote  of  the  municipal  system  was 
service,  giving  the  best  possible  to  the  citizens.  The 
municipality  operated  the  roads  in  the  interest  of  all. 
It  greatly  lowered  the  fares,  banished  all  advertisements 
from  the  cars,  made  the  names  of  the  routes  and  desti- 
nations conspicuous,  opened  up  new  routes  and  linked 
up  new  districts.  It  also  considered  its  employees.  With- 
out a  contented  staff  there  cannot  be  a  perfect  service. 
So  the  drivers  and  conductors  were  dressed  in  new  uni- 
forms, their  wages  were  increased,  their  hours  reduced. 
The  citizens  had  the  feeling  of  personal  possession  when 
they  patronized  the  cars,  which  display  the  city's  arms 
and  its  motto  — 'Let  Glasgow  Flourish.'  Civic  patriot- 
ism asserted  itself  later  on,  when  the  displaced  franchise- 
holders  started  a  competing  service  of  omnibuses,  which 
failed  to  get  support  and  soon  disappeared.     .     .     . 

"  The  fares  in  Glasgow  are  one  cent  for  a  stage  of  a 
[  132] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

little  over  half  a  mile,  and  over  30  per  cent  of  the  pass- 
engers travel  this  short  distance,  and  bring  in  nearly  17 
per  cent  of  the  receipts.  For  an  average  of  two  and  a 
third  miles,  the  fares  are  two  cents,  and  close  on  61  per 
cent  of  the  passengers  travel  this  distance  and  contri- 
bute 66|  per  cent  of  the  receipts,  so  that  91  per  cent  of 
the  total  number  carried  pay  two-cent  or  one-cent  fares. 
Only  6.31  per  cent  travel  for  three  cents.  .  .  .  Less 
than  one  per  cent  of  the  189,000,000  passengers  last 
year  paid  five  cents  or  more.     .     .     . 

"  The  Glasgow  tramways  are  managed  by  a  Committee 
of  the  City  Corporation,  which  holds  frequent  meetings 
and  reports  regularly  to  the  City  Council.  It  consists  of 
twenty-eight  members,  who  appoint  sub-committees  for 
supervising  different  departments.  It  obtains  the  sanc- 
tion of  the  Council  for  its  actions.  The  Council  might  be 
regarded  as  the  legislative  authority,  and  the  Committee 
as  the  executive. 

"  From  a  financial  point  of  view  the  Glasgow  under- 
taking has  been  remarkably  successful.  .  .  .  Last 
year's  accounts  indicate  the  healthy  financial  condition  of 
the  tramways.  The  total  receipts,  for  instance,  amounted 
to  $3,624,255,  the  operating  expenses  to  $1,684,100  —  49 
per  cent  of  the  revenue.  The  net  receipts  showed  a  gross 
return  on  the  capital  outlay  of  17.46  per  cent.  .  .  . 
The  accounts  of  the  department  are  examined  and  audi- 
ted by  independent  professional  accountants.  The  ac- 
counts are  published  with  elaborate  detail,  showing  the 
smallest  item  of  expenditure  worked  out  to  percentages 
and  comparisons  with  previous  years. 
[133  1 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

"The  Tramway  Department,  as  I  have  indicated, 
generates  its  own  electric  power,  the  total  cost  of  which 
is  less  than  one  cent  per  kilowatt  hour. 

"The  Tramways  Committee  delegates  considerable 
power  to  its  general  manager,  who  is  responsible  for  the 
staff  who  form  part  of  the  permanent  civil  service  in  the 
city.  Politics  does  not  influence  appointments,  and  pro- 
motion  is  by  merit.     .     .     . 

"  With  liberal  depreciation  and  reserve  funds  to  meet 
renewals  and  obsolescence,  with  a  redemption  fund 
which  liquidates  the  original  capital  of  the  undertaking 
in  thirty  years,  which  is  at  the  same  time  maintained 
in  an  efficient  condition  out  of  revenue,  the  City  Corpora- 
tion is  more  than  doing  its  duty  to  the  next  generation. 
Lower  fares  for  long  distances  should  be  easily  possible 
in  the  near  future,  and  there  is  a  prospect  that  the 
average  fare  will  come  down  to  one  cent.  A  universal 
one-cent  fare  irrespective  of  distance  could  then  be 
adopted. " 

Here  then  we  have  a  municipal  enterprise  which 
after  paying  its  annual  interest,  making  its  payments 
into  the  sinking  fund  for  the  redemption  of  its  capital, 
allowing  for  depreciation  and  reserve  fund,  paying 
its  local  tax  assessments  —  for  it  makes  the  same  con- 
tribution to  local  taxation  as  if  it  were  a  private  concern 
—  and  which  although  carrying  over  nine-tenths  of  its 
patrons  for  one-cent  and  two-cent  fares,  will  at  the  end 
of  thirty  years  —  between  nineteen  and  twenty  years  now, 
pay  for  itself  entirely  without  one  cent  of  cost  to  the 
people  or  to  the  municipality.  Moreover,  from  the  very 
f  134] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
beginning,  it  has  been  more  up-to-date  than  any  privately 
owned  system. 

There  is  indeed  quite  a  contrast  between  the  sturdy 
common-sense  and  business  sagacity  of  our  Scotch 
brethren  and  the  way  we  allow  ourselves  to  be  fleeced  in 
connection  with  practically  all  of  our  public  utilities  and 
the  type  of  service  that  even  then  we  accept. 

Is  it  any  wonder  then  that  so  many  thinking  men 
among  us  are  now  realizing  so  keenly  the  stupid  folly 
and  lack  of  business  management  among  us  in  this 
respect  ?  And  is  it  any  wonder  that  at  the  close  of  the 
recent  election  in  Chicago,  resulting  in  the  demand  of  her 
people  for  the  municipalization  of  her  transit  systems, 
that  a  man  of  such  business  insight  as  Mr.  Andrew 
Carnegie  should  send  to  the  newly  elected  Mayor  the 
following  message  as  he  is  reported  to  have  sent:  Tell 
Judge  Dunne  not  to  stop  until  every  public  utility  that  can 
be  made  the  subject  of  private  monopoly  has  been  placed 
under  the  control  and  operation  of  the  city.  Chicago 
is  still  in  its  infancy.  It  has  scarcely  yet  begun  to  grow. 
For  some  additional  concrete  facts  shall    we    take 
a  glance  at  Liverpool's  transit  systems.  In  this  we  have 
no  less  an  authority  than  Mr.  C.  R.  Bellamy,  General 
Manager  of  the  Municipal  Street  Railways  of  Liverpool. 
Some  time  ago  Mr.  Bellamy  gave  an  address  before 
the  National  Convention  on  Municipal  Ownership  and 
Public  Franchises,  held  under  the  auspices  of  the  New 
York  Reform  Club.  In  opening,  he  showed  how  the 
accommodations  on  his  roads  were  doubled  during  the 
rush  hours,  and  although  he  had  a  population  of  but 
[135] 


In  the  Fire  of  ifie  Heart 

700,000  to  deal  with,  the  fan-shaped  form  of  the  city  of 
Liverpool  became,  he  said,  terribly  congested  night  and 
morning,  and  the  traffic  was  quite  as  difficult  to  conduct 
as  in  any  other  city. 

"In  Great  Britain,"  continued  Mr.  Bellamy,  "the 
municipalities  have  largely  concluded  that  local  tram- 
way management  should  be  taken  up  in  the  common 
interest  and  worked  entirely  for  the  common  good, 
treating  it  as  a  necessity  in  the  same  category  with  water 
and  artificial  light.     .     . 

"  All  objections  to  municipal  trading  are  based  on  the 
surmise  that  it  is  fraught  with  danger  to  the  community, 
and  will  end  disastrously;  but  an  ounce  of  fact  is  worth 
a  pound  of  opinion. 

"In  1897,  a  company  rented  the  tramway  lines  which 
belonged  to  the  municipality  under  an  expired  lease  of 
seventeen  years.  The  service  was  inadequate,  the  fares 
were  high,  and  there  were  loud  complaints  as  to  the  con- 
ditions of  labour  of  the  employees.  It  was  felt  that  me- 
chanical should  supersede  horse  traction,  that  the  system 
should  be  largely  extended  and  fares  reduced,  and  the 
company  not  being  willing  to  make  these  changes, 
negotiations  were  opened  resulting  in  the  purchasing 
of  the  stock  and  shares  of  the  company. 

"  It  was  at  once  arranged  to  scrap  the  entire  under- 
taking and  to  adopt  electric  traction,  and  within  three 
years  of  its  acquirement  the  whole  of  the  sixty-eight 
miles  of  track  were  reconstructed,  together  with  forty 
miles  of  additional  new  track,  which  were  equipped 
with  400  regular  cars. 

[130] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

"The  total  carrying  capacity  was  quadrupled,  the 
fares  reduced  by  nearly  one-half,  the  wages  of  the  em- 
ployees largely  increased  and  their  hours  of  labour  re- 
duced, and  they  were  all  supplied  with  uniform  clothing. 

"It  was  a  bold  movement,  and  was  considerably 
criticized,  but  the  response  of  a  grateful  public  to  the 
facilities  afforded  made  it  at  once  evident  that  the  suc- 
cess of  the  new  scheme  was  assured.  " 

Here,  then,  is  a  system  which  in  addition  to  making 
its  annual  contribution  to  local  taxation,  putting  by  a 
regular  fund  for  the  redemption  of  its  capital,  allowing 
for  depreciation,  keeping  itself  in  the  highest  state  of 
efficiency,  has  nearly  doubled  its  earning  capacity  within 
a  period  of  five  years,  although  raising  its  employees' 
wages  and  shortening  their  hours  of  work,  and  is  giving 
its  patrons  a  most  up-to-date  service  and  accommoda- 
tions, charging  a  fare  of  two  cents  within  the  city  limits, 
and  a  fare  of  four  cents  on  beyond  the  city  limits,  and 
that  in  a  few  years  will  entirely  pay  for  itself  without  one 
cent  of  expense  to  a  single  citizen  or  to  the  municipality. 
As  soon  as  this  period  is  up,  then  a  still  greater  reduc- 
tion of  fares  can,  and  in  all  probability  will,  be  made; 
for  such  is  the  policy  of  these  municipally  owned  and 
managed  utilities.  Another  fact  should  be  mentioned  in 
connection  with  this  system  —  one  person,  employee 
or  passenger,  was  killed  the  previous  year  in  every 
13,000,000  people  carried.  They  also,  as  in  connection 
with  all  municipally  owned  and  managed  utilities,  had  no 
expensive  legal  and  court  proceedings  to  compel  private 
owners  to  carry  out  their  agreements  with  the  city. 
[137] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

We  coukl  go  into  hundreds  of  other  cities  in  Great 
Britain,  in  Germany,  in  Belgium  and  other  continental 
countries,  as  well  as  into  Australia  and  New  Zealand; 
but  in  all  we  would  find  the  same  general  facts  and  con- 
ditions, varying  slightly  in  detail  simply  by  reason  of 
varying  local  conditions. 

Now  in  all  fairness  I  ask,  if  the  people  in  the  cities  of 
these  countries  can  save  for  themselves  the  returns  from 
these  wonderfully  rich  properties,  aggregating  hundreds 
of  millions  annually,  instead  of  allowing  these  vast 
amounts  to  flow  into  the  pockets  of  a  few  already  overly 
rich  individuals,  why  cannot  we  American  people  do  the 
same  ?  If  we  cannot  then  we  must  admit  that  we  are  less 
capable  in  business  management  and  in  the  matter  of 
self-government  than  they.  This  we  can  scarcely  believe, 
especially  when  in  some  respects  we  have  proved  ourselves 
even  more  capable.  I  cannot  believe  that  in  these  matters 
we  are  any  less  capable,  or  that  we  will  show  an  inferior 
ability  when  we  are  sufficiently  alert  and  determined. 

The  reply  is  made,  if  we  had  the  honesty  in  municipal 
administration  that  they  have  in  England,  in  Scotland, 
in  Germany  and  the  various  other  countries  where  such 
splendid  municipal  ownership  results  are  obtained,  then 
we  could  safely  travel  along  the  same  lines.  True,  but  the 
municipalities  in  these  countries  did  not  always  have  this 
characteristic,  but  they  have  attained  it  by  simply  going 
about  it  to  attain  it.  They  made  the  start  which  in  a 
very  definite  way  has  led  them  to  such  splendid  results. 
This  is  the  stock  argument  presented  against  the  mu- 
nicipal ownership  and  management  of  public  utilities, 
[138] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

and  that  it  is  a  strong  argument  is  held,  and  very  honest- 
ly held,  by  large  numbers  of  people.  It  is  an  argument, 
the  only  argument  really  worthy  of  consideration,  but 
an  argument  not  without  an  answer.  We  had  better 
keep  as  we  are  lest  we  get  into  conditions  still  worse, 
it  is  said.  But  this  latter  is  no  argument,  and  it  has  no 
truth  even  as  a  statement;  for  taking  it  all  in  all  it  is 
absolutely  impossible  to  have  conditions  in  this  respect 
worse  than  they  are  when  we  consider  the  uniformly 
excessively  high  charges  and  the  generally  poor  and  inad- 
equate service,  and  the  thousands  of  unnecessary  killings 
and  maimings  that  form  the  total  for  each  year.  With  this 
must  be  combined  the  great  amount  of  political  corrup- 
tion and  debauchery  that  passes  every  year,  and  coupled 
with  it  all  we  must  not  refuse  to  take  account  of  the 
yearly  additions  of  the  millions  to  the  wealth  of  these 
little  groups  of  already  excessively  rich  men,  many  of 
whom  are  thoroughly  unscrupulous  in  their  dealings 
and  in  their  entire  outlook,  as  is  all  too  clearly  evidenced 
by  the  methods  they  have  been  and  are  continually 
using  in  furthering  their  ends,  and  in  getting  control  of 
still  larger  amounts  of  the  people's  properties,  so  that 
they  have  become  a  menace  to  free  institutions  and  to 
the  welfare  of  every  man,  woman  and  child  in  the  nation. 
Matters,  I  repeat,  by  no  stretch  of  the  imagination, 
could  be  any  worse  than  they  are,  unless  in  connection 
with  the  taking  over  of  these  utilities  for  our  common 
use,  we  cut  loose  from  all  common-sense  in  our  methods 
of  procedure  and  business  management,  which  I  am 
sure  we  are  not  liable  to  do. 

[139] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

The  present  amount  of  political  corruption  and  graft 
in  our  city  administration  is,  I  am  inclined  to  think,  one 
very  great  argument,  when  we  look  at  it  in  an  all  round 
way,  for  taking  from  private  exploitation  the  manage- 
ment of  these  public  utilities;  for  then  the  responsibili- 
ties at  City  Hall  will  become  so  great  that  we,  the  indi- 
vidual citizen,  will  be  compelled  to  give  the  amount  of 
time  and  study  and  attention  to  municipal  affairs  that 
we  should  be  giving,  for  it  is  on  account  of  this  lack  that 
these  public  service  corporations  have  been  able  to  have 
seated  in  our  city  councils  the  men  that  they  have  been 
able  to  make  their  deals  with,  and  who,  for  considera- 
tion, have  been  handing  over  these  public  properties  for 
their  private  enrichment.  This  is  the  great  evil  that  we 
must  now  quickly  face.  It  is  the  sore  that  has  been  grad- 
ually rotting  and  festering  and  gradually  enveloping  the 
very  vitals  of  our  entire  social  body.  Men's  abilities  and 
real  qualities  assert  themselves  in  the  degree  that  responsi- 
bilities are  placed  upon  them.  So  with  something  per- 
sonal enough  and  large  enough  and  inspiring  enough 
for  our  splendid  common  citizenship  to  work  for,  as  this 
great  movement  and  all  that  it  carries  with  it  must  be, 
and  especially  if  we  strike  for  it  at  once  without  delays 
or  dickerings,  and  without  any  more  millions  being 
handed  over  or  any  further  alienation  of  properties  and 
rights,  we  would  quickly  make  a  splendid  beginning  in 
purging  our  social  body  of  this  rapidly  growing  and 
vigour-sapping  disease.  And  when  we  begin  to  experience 
the  direct  personal  results  that  will  follow,  then  I  am 
sure  that  we  will  never  stop  until  we  have  put  com- 
[140] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

pletely  by  the  old,  and  into  full  and  complete  operation, 
the  new. 

Hand  in  hand  with  the  extension  of  this  movement 
must  go  the  continual  extending  and  perfecting  of  our 
Civil  Service  system,  making  it  continually  stronger  in 
its  requirements  for  admission,  with  perhaps  continually 
greater  leeway  along  the  lines  of  dismissals  for  proven 
incompetency,  and  if  the  management  in  making  re- 
movals cannot  appoint  except  from  the  duly  qualified 
lists,  there  will  be  but  little  chance  for  the  political 
machine  methods  gaining  control,  or  even  extending 
themselves  materially.  By  a  wise  and  judicious  exten- 
sion of  such  a  system,  hand  in  hand  with  the  growth  of 
municipal  ownership,  the  machine  elements  would  be 
compelled  gradually  to  disappear. 

There  can  be  no  argument  that  the  financial  burden 
in  connection  with  these  undertakings  would  be  too 
great  for  our  cities  to  assume,  because  under  wise  and 
judicious  management  no  additional  burdens  need  be 
assumed,  and  these  enterprises  can  be  taken  over  and 
improved  and  extended  just  as  they  have  been  in  the 
cities  of  Great  Britain  and  of  Germany  already  noted, 
and  can  be  made  to  pay  for  themselves  out  of  their  own 
earnings  without  involving  a  burden  of  a  single  dollar 
upon  any  individuals  or  upon  any  municipality. 

But  this  entire  matter  of  municipal  ownership  is 
nothing  new  nor  startling  even  with  us ;  it  is  in  fact  merely 
an  extension  of  the  municipal  ownership  methods  that 
we  already  have,  including  municipal  water  supplies 
—  practically  all  of  which  are  now  or  soon  will  be  under 
[141] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

complete  municipal  ownership  and  management.  So 
our  fire  departments,  our  street-cleaning  departments, 
our  parks,  and  our  public  schools.  Are  these  and  others 
that  could  be  mentioned  not  managed  more  economically 
and  satisfactorily  and  more  uniformly  for  the  public 
welfare  than  if  they  were  left  to  private  enterprise  ? 
Who  is  there  bold  enough  to  say  at  all  seriously,  that 
any  of  these  public  utilities  should  be  turned  over  to 
private  enterprise  ?  But  to  be  supplied  at  satisfactory 
rates  and  in  an  all  round  satisfactory  manner  with 
lighting  and  heating  facilities  —  gas  and  electricity  — 
street-car  and  telephone  facilities,  etc.,  is  just  as  impor- 
tant, for  they  are  just  as  much  necessities  as  those 
already   mentioned. 

And  even  in  the  matter  of  the  now  rapidly  crystallizing 
municipal  ownership  movement,  we  are  not  without 
precedent  and  not  without  some  very  telling  results. 
Chicago  for  example,  for  over  fifteen  years  has  owned 
and  operated  one  of  the  largest  electric  lighting  plants 
in  the  country,  with  which  she  lights  her  streets  and  pub- 
lic buildings.  At  one  time  she  paid  $125  a  year  for 
an  arc-light.  She  is  able  to  make  her  own  light  for  about 
$54  per  lamp.  She  has  been  doing  this  despite  the 
fact  that  she  has  not  been  furnishing  the  private  con- 
sumer with  light.  And  on  account  of  the  fat-pursed 
private  concerns,  her  city  lighting  plant,  which  has  al- 
ways been  a  menace  to  the  private  gas  and  electric  com- 
panies, has  been  fought  and  hampered  by  them  at  every 
movement.  Aldermen  they  have  elected  and  Mayors 
they  have  controlled  have  crippled  and  starved  it. 
[142] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
Notwithstanding  this  corporate  hatred  and  intriguing 
and  this  official  treachery,  it  has  grown,  has  served  the 
city  splendidly,  and  has  saved  it  large  sums  every  year. 
It  has  therefore  demonstrated  what  even  under  the  most 
adverse  circumstances  can  be  done,  and  furnishes  a 
basis  upon  which  the  city  will  now  speedily  build  a  true 
electric  lighting  system,  which  will  supply  all  her  people 
with  light  and  so  will  save  vast  sums  for  them  each  year 
also.  With  the  passing  of  the  private  concerns  will  pass 
the  great  amount  of  debauchery  and  corruption  they 
have  been  responsible  for  in  the  city's  municipal  ad- 
ministration. 

It  should  also  be  stated  in  connection  with  Chicago's 
lighting  undertaking  that,  during  the  period  it  has  been 
in  operation,  something  over  fifteen  years,  in  addition  to 
doing  her  municipal  lighting  for  about  one-half  of  what 
private  concerns  would  demand,  it  has  in  this  short 
period  of  time  entirely  paid  for  itself,  is  now  the  property 
of  the  city  without  any  cost  to  it,  and  is  now  in  position 
to  reduce  still  lower  the  cost  of  its  lighting.  And  a  short 
time  ago  both  houses  of  the  Illinois  legislature  heard 
so  plainly  the  demand  of  the  people  along  the  lines  of 
the  municipalizing  of  their  public  utilities,  that  a  bill 
was  passed  allowing  the  city  of  Chicago  to  maintain  gas 
and  electric  lighting  plants,  and  to  pay  for  them  — 
whether  bought  or  built  —  by  issuing  interest  bearing 
certificates  to  be  redeemed  out  of  the  earnings  of  the 
properties  for  which  they  pay,  thus  not  affecting  in 
the  least  the  city's  general  revenues  or  rate  of 
taxation.  Chicago  will  be  very  proud  in  the  coming 
[143] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
years  to  have  the  honour  of  being  sort  of  a  forerunner  in 
this  great  municipal  ownership  movement  that  will 
eventually  inciuae  every  city  of  importance  in  the  land. 
And  we  can  well  afford  to  give  her  this  honour,  for  by 
her  example  and  experience  other  cities  will  be  en- 
couraged and  helped. 

When  in  addition  to  the  few  millions  the  street-car 
companies  of  Chicago  have  been  taking  from  the  people 
in  profits  each  year,  several  millions  in  addition  are 
saved  to  the  people  in  their  gas  and  electric  lighting 
bills,  they  can  well  afford  even  financially  to  bear  with 
becoming  grace  this  honour. 

But  the  best  thing  about  it  all  is  that  we  are  now  on 
the  move.  It  has  taken  us  a  long,  long  time  to  get 
started.  But  we  have  another  characteristic,  that,  when 
we  once  start  we  are  capable  of  moving  rapidly.  When 
the  time  comes  that  all  public  utilities  are  managed  by 
and  for  the  benefit  of  those  to  whom  they  belong,  as 
they  will  be,  and  sooner  I  am  inclined  to  think  than 
many  of  us  even  now  realize,  we  will  then  wonder  that 
our  bump  of  common-sense  and  business  insight  in 
connection  with  these  matters  did  not  mature  more 
early.  The  price  we  are  paying  for  this  delay  is  certainly 
something  enormous. 

So  far  as  the  question  of  right  in  the  people's  taking 
over  and  managing  these  utilities  for  their  own  benefit 
is  concerned,  it  is  scarcely  worthy  of  consideration,  for 
we  all  know  that  it  exists.  Almost  a  hundred  forms  of 
private  ownership  in  the  form  of  tolls,  etc.,  have  gone. 
We  can  proceed  by  way  of  direct  purchase,  mutual 
[144] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

agreement  in  regard  to  price,  if  it  is  found  advantageous 
to  buy  the  private  companies  out.  The  more  that  can  be 
done  in  this  way  the  better.  Then  we  can  proceed  by 
way  of  condemnation  proceedings,  through  the  right 
of  eminent  domain.  It  is  a  recognized  principle  in  govern- 
ment that  the  right  or  desire  of  the  individual  is  always 
subservient  to  the  public  good.  If  I  own  a  particular 
piece  of  property  and  though  I  may  think  very  highly 
of  it,  if  a  street  is  to  be  opened  that  will  be  for  the  public 
benefit,  or  if  a  railroad  owned  even  by  private  individ- 
uals is  to  be  constructed,  or  a  public  building  erected, 
the  portion  of  the  property  required  is  taken,  or  all,  if 
all  is  necessary,  and  I  am  given  compensation  for  it 
according  to  its  real  value,  and  not  in  accordance  with 
whatever  estimate  of  its  value  I  may  be  pleased  to  place 
upon  it.  Here  is  something  to  be  noted  when  these  public 
properties  are  taken  over  to  be  managed  for  all  the 
people  —  they  will  be  taken  at  their  real  values,  not  at 
any  fiat  values,  and  a  shrinking  in  values  to  the  tune  of 
many  millions  will  be  witnessed.  The  people  are  always 
pre-eminently  fair  in  matters  such  as  these.  They  will 
want  to  pay  for  every  dollar  of  real  value  taken,  but  they 
will  not  pay  the  prices  that  the  companies,  almost  with- 
out exception,  will  ask.  The  millions  in  watered  stocks 
will  be  of  no  value  to  the  people  as  they  are  of  no  value 
to  them  now,  but  on  the  contrary,  are  the  cause  of  their 
parting  with  many  a  hard  earning  dollar.  We  will  pay 
and  willingly  pay  every  dollar  any  property  is  worth, 
but  we  should  not  pay  a  dollar  more  than  its  real  value 
calls  for. 

r  145  ] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

An  instructive  lesson  along  this  line  comes  from  Lon- 
don. Various  water  companies,  some  dating  even  from 
the  Middle  Ages,  were  able  to  retain  their  gr;p  upon  the 
city  until,  through  the  progressive  action  or  tne  London 
County  Council,  to  which  the  city  owes  much  of  its 
modern  people's  movement  programme,  determined  to 
take  them  entirely  out  of  private  hands.  The  old  com- 
panies were  dispossessed  and  the  entire  water  supply 
was  put  under  the  management  of  the  Metropolitan 
Water  Board.  An  arbitrating  board  was  appointed, 
consisting  of  some  of  the  ablest  engineers  in  Great 
Britain.  Their  finding  was  that  the  city  should  pay  a 
sum  equal  to  about  60  per  cent  of  the  amount  asked  for 
them  by  the  old  companies.  The  result  was  the  saving 
to  the  people  of  a  little  over  $10,000,000.  It  will  not  be 
an  impossible  task  for  similar  boards  composed  of 
skilled  men  who  thoroughly  understand  the  matters 
they  are  brought  together  to  pass  upon,  to  estimate  in 
a  similar  manner  the  real  values  of  the  various  utilities 
we  shall  be  taking  over  here. 

It  seems  scarcely  necessary  in  view  of  the  facts  we 
have  already  considered  pertaining  to  the  results  that 
have  already  been  achieved  along  municipal  ownership 
lines,  to  attempt  to  say  anything  further  in  its  favour. 
The  mere  enumeration  of  some  of  the  things  already 
accomplished,  with  their  splendid  results  to  the  people, 
should  speak  and  does  speak  more  loudly  and  persua- 
sively than  any  array  of  arguments  that  could  be  gotten 
together. 

It  is  not,  fortunately,  a  matter  of  experimenting.  We 

r  146 1 


In  the  Fire  of  the   Heart 

know  from  what  has  already  been  done  what  the  results 
under  wise  and  careful  management  must  be.  The  fact 
as  we  have  already  noted  that  all  privately  owned  and 
managed  companies  are  actuated  by  the  one  motive,  the 
largest  possible  gain,  makes  it  absolutely  impossible  for 
the  people  to  be  served  and  benefited  as  they  should  be; 
nor  will  they  ever  be  until  these  public  utilities  are  con- 
ducted primarily  for  the  benefit  of  the  people.  An  edi- 
torial in  the  Boston  Herald,  sometime  ago,  contained 
the  following  telling  and  true  sentences:  "No  public 
benefit  is  ever  to  be  expected  of  corporations  organized 
for  gain,  which  are  so  powerful  that  they  feel  able  to 
make  the  law  or  to  defy  it.  No  good  to  the  consumers  of 
products  can  be  hoped  for  from  a  monopoly  which  be- 
gins by  the  creation  of  fiat-capital.  Having  eliminated 
competition,  it  will  certainly  squeeze  out  of  the  people 
every  dollar  that  can  be  extorted,  regardless  of  justice 
and  indifferent  to  suffering,  even  to  the  verge  of  pro- 
voking popular  revolution.  They  will  proceed  to  control, 
by  means  they  well  understand,  legislation,  administra- 
tion and  judicial  tribunals.  The  people  have  no  rights 
they  feel  bound  to  respect." 

In  view  of  these  facts  we  have  really  no  choice  in  the 
matter.  It  is  purely  a  matter  of  justice,  a  clearly  written 
duty  —  that  which  is  intended  to  serve  all  the  people  in 
common  should  be  so  managed  that  all  the  people  are 
served.  As  it  is,  the  millions  are  exploited  by  the  few 
hundreds,  and  worse,  for  in  many  cases  they  are  plainly 
plundered  by  them.  And  all  these  years  we  have  been 
quietly  submitting  to  it  and  acting  as  if  we  knew  no  bet- 
[147] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

fcer.  We  have  been  learning  very  rapidly  of  late,  however. 

The  issue  is  becoming  so  clear  cut,  and  so  many  able 
and  well-known  men  are  now  coming  forward  with  ring- 
ing and  inspiring  declarations  in  favour  of  this  great 
movement  that  is  now  on  foot  among  us,  that  an  entire 
volume  could  be  quickly  compiled  from  these  declara- 
tions alone. 

Note  the  following  extract  from  a  letter  in  response  to 
an  invitation  recently  sent  out  by  the  Municipal  Owner- 
ship League  of  New  York:  "Unless,  indeed,  it  be  the 
fact  that  —  as  some  have  recently  cynically  intimated  — 
'New  York  is  practically  insane,'  its  citizens  will  soon 
quite  irresistibly  demand  the  definite  adoption  and  the 
genuine  execution  of  the  policy  of  municipal  ownership 
(and  municipal  operation)  of  all  these  conditions  and 
instrumentalities,  the  efficient  administration  of  which, 
in  the  general  interest,  is  at  once  absolutely  essential  to 
the  prosperity  and  safety  of  the  city,  and,  not  otherwise  to 
be  preserved  from  the  abuses  and  perversion  inevitably 
incident  to  their  exploitations  as  the  private  property  of 
a  profit-mongering  and  stock-gambling  monopoly." 

The  following  also  in  response  to  a  similar  invitation : 
"  New  York  voters  have  tired  of  the  stock-jobbing  gas 
combination  which  charges  exorbitant  rates  for  a  mis- 
erable, inadequate  service,  and  which  boldly  decrees 
that  our  streets  shall  be  constantly  torn  up  rather  than 
allow  the  providing  of  pipe  galleries  in  the  subways, 
which  might  give  opportunity  for  the  rights  of  the  public 
to  be  asserted.  They  are  tired,  too,  of  giving  away  scores 
of  millions  of  the  city's  property  to  the  Subway  company 
[148] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

to  become  a  tax-free  asset  of  the  Rothschilds.  ...  I 
believe  that  the  great  majority  of  our  citizens  hold  the 
supplying  of  light  and  transportation  to  be  as  much  pub- 
lic functions  as  the  veins  and  arteries  are  functions  of  the 
body.  For  these  public  functions  to  be  exercised  as  private 
interests  and  with  private  profits  as  their  chief  end  is  a 
condition  of  mediaeval  anarchy  which  no  possible  com- 
bination of  politicians  will,  for  much  longer,  be  able 
to  uphold. " 

So  conservative  and  able  a  business  man  as  ex-Gover- 
nor Douglas  of  Massachusetts  in  one  of  his  late  messages 
to  the  Massachusetts  Legislature,  had  this  to  say  in 
regard  to  the  matter  we  are  considering :  "  I  recommend 
legislation  giving  to  cities  and  towns  wider  powers  in 
the  conduct  of  business  which  derives  its  profit  from  the 
necessities  of  the  community.  The  powers  already 
granted  have  proved  the  economy  and  wisdom  of  the 
conduct  of  such  business  by  the  community  itself.    .    .    . 

"In  many  cases  of  privately  owned  public  service 
corporations  the  rates,  fares  and  prices  charged  are  too 
high.  The  public  is  entitled  to  reasonable  charges  for  the 
services  of  these  monopolies.  It  will  be  far  more  likely 
to  obtain  service  at  reasonable  prices  if  it  has  the  right 
to  do  business  on  its  own  account. 

"When  a  public  service  corporation  is  giving  good 
service  at  fair  rates  it  is  not  likely  to  be  disturbed.  When 
its  rates  and  prices  are  unreasonable,  it  should,  in  the 
interest  of  the  public  welfare,  be  disturbed. 

"It  is  not  disputed  that,  as  a  rule,  private  corpora- 
tions conduct  their  business  more  economically  than 
[149] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

do  public  corporations.  It  is,  however,  disputed  that  the 
public  usually  obtains  the  benefit  of  this  economical 
management.  In  most  cases,  therefore,  the  publicly 
owned  and  operated  waterworks,  sewers,  gas  and  elec- 
tric lighting  plants  have  given  the  public  cheaper  and 
better  service  than  have  the  privately  owned  concerns. 

"  For  these  reasons,  I  ask  the  Legislature  to  give  every 
reasonable  facility  to  those  municipalities  which  desire 
to  conduct  their  own  public  service  utilities. 

"Appreciating  the  difficulties  of  obtaining  good 
business  management  and  economical  production  by 
municipalities,  I  urge  you,  when  making  laws  for  muni- 
cipal ownership,  to  so  frame  them  that  the  evils  of  politi- 
cal management  will,  so  far  as  possible,  be  eliminated. 
With  proper  legislation  it  should  be  possible  to  obtain 
Most  of  the  benefits  without  any  of  the  evils  of  privately 
owned  and  operated  public  service  corporations. " 

Of  course,  it  is  not  to  be  expected  that  at  first  the 
results  will  in  every  case  be  all  that  are  looked  for  by  the 
most  sanguine.  Some  mistakes  will  be  made.  But  this 
is  one  of  the  ways  in  which  greater  ability  in  the  conduct 
of  these  enterprises  will  be  grown.  And  then  we  already 
have  such  splendid  examples  to  learn  from.  It  will  un- 
doubtedly require  careful  and  wise  business  management 
to  obtain  in  all  cases  the  highest  results. 

I  think  another  paragraph  from  ex-Governor  Douglas's 
inaugural  address  may  not  be  amiss  here :  "  If,  when 
guarded  by  as  careful  and  wise  legislation  as  is  possible, 
certain  municipalities  should  fail  in  their  attempt  to 
give  better  and  cheaper  service  to  the  public,  it  will  be 
[150] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

because  the  citizens  of  these  municipalities  do  not  insist 
upon  having  their  municipal  plants  conducted  in  a 
businesslike  manner.  The  principle  of  municipal  owner- 
ship is  sound.  In  cases  where  unsatisfactory  results  are 
produced  the  fault  is  usually  to  be  found  in  a  laxity  of 
administration.  I  believe  that  every  such  franchise 
taken  over  by  the  public  relieves  the  people  from  pos- 
sible exaction,  practised  for  private  profit.  With  the  low 
rates  at  which  municipalities  can  borrow  and  the  elimi- 
nation of  dividends,  the  rates  must  be  inevitably  lowered, 
and  the  people  become  alone  responsible  for  the  efficiency 
of  the  service. " 

So  far,  in  this  part,  we  have  dealt  entirely  with  the 
matter  of  the  public  ownership  and  management  of 
those  utilities  that  pertain  especially  to  our  cities.  The 
number  of  people  is  rapidly  growing  among  us  who  are 
also  asking  why  we  should  not  have  a  national  and  state 
ownership  and  management  or  control  of  those  public 
utilities  that  pertain  to  all  the  people,  the  same  as  this 
principle  is  being  extended  in  Great  Britain  and  various 
Continental  countries,  so  as  to  include  telegraph,  express, 
telephone,  railroad  enterprises,  and  thus  secure  for  the 
people  better  service  and  lower  rates  as  the  people  in 
these  other  countries  are  enjoying.  There  is  no  reason 
why  this  should  not  to  a  judicious  extent  come  about,  and 
that  it  will,  is  as  certain  as  that  the  principle  of  muni- 
cipal ownership  will  eventually  so  grow  and  extend 
itself  as  practically  to  include  every  city  in  the  nation. 

The  principle  of  state  and  national  ownership  and 
control  will  grow  and  extend  itself  a  little  more  tardily, 
[151  J 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

but  its  eventual  growth  and  triumph  is  just  as  certain. 
The  beginnings  will  be  made  in  connection  with  the 
managing  of  the  municipal  utilities  for  the  benefit  of  the 
people,  and  as  it  is  seen  what  gains  will  result  from  these, 
the  demand  for  its  extension  so  as  to  include  all  the 
"natural  monopolies"  that  are  now  operated  purely  for 
private  gain  will  continually  increase.  If  this  can  be 
done  in  other  countries  and  so  successfully,  as  is  now 
being  done,  then  it  can  be  done  here,  unless  again  in 
this,  we  are  willing  to  be  classed  as  incompetents  as 
compared  with  our  British  and  Continental  brethren. 
And  if  it  can  be  done  so  successfully  and  to  the  great 
gain  of  the  people  in  one  line,  then  it  can  be  done  also 
successfully  and  to  the  gain  of  the  people  in  lines  of  a 
more  or  a  less  kindred  nature. 

Here  again,  fortunately,  we  do  not  have  to  deal  with 
any  matters  of  theory  or  speculation  merely.  For  years 
the  United  States  Government  has  conducted  a  great 
public  utility  for  its  people,  and  during  all  the  years  it 
has  been  in  operation  it  has  given  them  a  service  in- 
comparably better  than  that  of  any  private  company  or 
companies  even  by  the  wildest  stretch  of  the  imagination 
would  have  been,  and  at  prices  a  mere  fraction  of  what  we 
would  be  now  paying  as  a  necessary  tribute  to  corporate 
greed.  We  can,  through  this  splendid  government  ser- 
vice, send  a  message  by  postal  card  or  a  much  longer  one 
by  letter  to  practically  any  portion  of  the  entire  world 
for  a  two-cent  fee  or  a  five-cent  fee.  Now,  in  all  fairness  I 
ask,  what  would  be  exacted  for  this  service  if  this  public 
necessity  were  under  the  control  of  private  companies? 

[152] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

Judging  from  their  charges  in  other  things  —  express, 
telegraph,  freight,  can  we  reasonably  expect  that  the 
one  would  be  a  fee  of  less  than  five  cents,  or  the  other 
less  than  ten  ?  That  is  even  for  the  shorter  foreign  ser- 
vices, with  still  an  additional  fee  for  the  longer  distances. 
In  addition  to  the  low  fees  we  now  pay,  compared  to 
what  we  would  pay  under  private  management,  we  get  a 
service  that  is  as  prompt  and  efficient  as  it  can  reason- 
ably be  made.  Dependent  upon  private  concerns,  our 
mail  matter  would  be  carried  at  their  convenience. 
At  first  competition  in  connection  with  some  of  the 
routes  would  insure  us  against  the  worst  of  service,  but 
later  on  when  the  various  concerns  through  mutual  self- 
interest  had  pooled  their  interests  or  had  consolidated 
into  one  huge  monopoly,  then  we  would  be  practically 
at  the  mercy  of  this  concern,  the  same  as  millions  of 
people  all  over  the  country  are  at  this  very  hour  at  the 
mercy  of  other  concerns  of  a  similar  public  nature. 
We  appreciate  too  much  our  one-cent  and  two-cent  fees 
for  domestic  postal  card  and  letter,  with  the  large  lee- 
way we  have  so  far  as  amount  is  concerned  in  connec- 
tion with  the  latter. 

Then  the  conveniences  we  have  for  small  merchan- 
dise many  times  allows  us  to  save  ourselves  from  the 
demands  of  the  privately  owned  express  companies 
when  the  element  of  distance  enters.  We  should  be 
paying  them  still  more  were  it  not  for  the  benign  and 
restraining  influences  the  Post-Office  Department  exerts 
over  their  calculations.  I  have  before  me  the  report  of 
the  New  York  post-office  for  the  year  ending  June  30, 
[153] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

1905.  It  shows  a  net  profit  for  this  period  of  twelve- 
month, of  a  little  more  than  $10,000,000.  Quite  a  neat 
sum  to  go  into  the  pockets  of  private  individuals  did 
we  allow  private  concerns  to  attend  to  this  necessity 
for  us,  the  same  as  we  allow  them  to  attend  to  other 
necessities  of  a  similar  nature.  This  neat  net  profit 
would  be  much  larger,  however,  for  their  charges 
would  be  in  practically  all  cases  higher  than  we  are 
now  paying.  And  by  virtue  of  paying  their  employees 
less,  and  giving  an  inferior  type  of  accommodation  for 
the  people,  their  operating  expenses  would  be  less,  and 
therefore,  their  profits  still  greater. 

In  addition  to  this  item  of  $10,000,000  in  net  profit 
for  a  single  year,  I  think  quite  as  significant  a  matter 
is  the  fact  that  on  the  day  the  report  was  made,  twenty- 
six  new  sub-stations  —  for  the  people's  greater  con- 
venience —  were  opened,  one  with  a  force  numbering 
sixty-six.  Private  companies  do  not  increase  their  operat- 
ing expenses  for  the  peoples'  greater  convenience,  ex- 
cept as  self-interest  may  dictate,  that  is,  when  a  com- 
peting company  makes  additional  accommodations  for 
the  convenience  of  the  people  a  method  of  securing 
additional  business.  This  also  is  interesting :  "  One 
hundred  additional  clerks  who  have  served  their 
time  as  substitutes  were  added  to  the  regular  staff  to- 
day. .  .  .  An  additional  hundred  substitute  clerks 
have  also  been  appointed  to  take  the  places  left  vacant 
by  those  promoted.  This  makes  two  hundred  appointed 
from  the  new  eligible  list." 

All  in  all  it  is  not  a  bad  showing  so  far  as  clear-cut 
[154] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

and  clean  business  methods  are  concerned,  in  addition 
to  the  neat  business  balance.  Rather  a  stiff  argument, 
isn't  it,  to  present  to  the  attention  of  those  who  argue 
that  a  great  and  complex  service  of  this  kind  cannot  be 
conducted  as  economically  and  as  advantageously  for 
the  people  by  the  government  as  by  private  concerns  ? 
I  wonder  how  much  of  an  extension  of  the  free  rural 
delivery  service  that  is  now  coming  to  the  convenience 
of  millions  in  the  country  and  rural  districts,  who  es- 
pecially, need  greater  conveniences,  there  would  be  if 
private  concerns  were  fattening  upon  this  great  public 
utility,  pardon  me  —  were  performing  this  service  for  us. 
How  about  the  revelations  in  connection  with  the 
irregularities  and  dishonesty  in  the  Post-Office  Depart- 
ment that  came  to  the  public  knowledge  some  months 
ago,  I  hear  it  asked.  There  were  irregularities  and  there 
was  corruption.  The  very  fact,  however,  that  we  heard 
so  much  of  it  and  the  fact  that  the  perpetrators  of  it 
were  arraigned  and  brought  to  justice,  argues  well  for 
such  government  ownership  and  administration.  More- 
over, I  venture  this  assertion,  that  the  aggregate  of 
losses  sustained  by  the  public  through  this  agency,  have 
not  equalled  one  thousandth  part  of  the  amount  of 
debauchery  and  corruption  that  would  have  resulted 
were  this  public  service  utility  allowed  to  be  in  the  hands 
of  private  individuals  or  companies,  and  therefore  run 
from  beginning  to  end  for  private  gain.  I  also  venture 
this  statement,  that  all  the  losses  sustained  through 
dishonesty  and  fraud  in  our  government  Post-Office 
Department,  from  the  first  year  of  its  operation  down 
[155] 


In  the  Fire  oj  the  Heart 

to  the  present  time,  have  not  equalled — to  be  conserva- 
tive— one  five  thousandth  part  of  the  amounts  that  the 
profits  of  private  management  would  have  taken  from 
us,  to  say  nothing  of  the  uniformly  inferior  type  of 
service  furnished,  compared  to  that  which  we  have  been 
and  are  enjoying. 

Can  any  one  present  what  would  be  regarded  as  any 
reasonable  argument,  and  one  that  would  be  accepted 
by  any  number  of  reasonable  and  thinking  men,  why 
the  government  cannot  carry  for  us  our  express  packages 
through  the  medium  of  a  parcels  post,  and  attend  to  our 
telegraph  and  telephone  needs,  as  successfully  as  it 
now  attends  to  our  postal  needs,  and  the  same  as  other 
people  through  their  central  governments  are  having 
done  for  them  with  a  better  service  and  at  much  lower 
rates  than  they  were  able  at  any  time  to  get  from  their 
former  private  companies  ?  Certainly  no  one  of  these  is  as 
difficult  and  as  complex  as  the  service  the  government 
is  already  performing  for  us.  And  to  take  these  over 
simply  as  extensions  of  the  department  already  in  opera- 
tion would  be  by  no  means  a  difficult  task.  Those  who 
are  familiar  with  the  parcels  post  in  Great  Britain  for 
example,  and  its  nominal  "peoples  "  charges,  compared 
to  the  tribute  levied  by  our  express  companies,  appre- 
ciate what  this  change  will  mean.  The  absurdity  of  a 
minimum  express  charge  here  being  twenty-five  cents! 
It  would  make  an  Englishman's  or  a  German's  or  a 
Belgian's  blood  boil  to  have  such  a  tribute  levied  upon 
him,  with  no  other  reason  than  for  the  purpose  of  lining 
the  pockets  of  a  few  already  wealthy  company  owners. 
[156] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

What  would  they  say  to  such  as  this  for  example:  A 
few  weeks  ago  through  the  breaking  of  some  minor 
parts  of  a  cultivator  I  was  compelled  to  send  to  the 
factory  for  new  pieces.  The  cost  of  the  parts  was  a  dollar 
and  twenty-five  cents.  The  bulk  was  less  than  half  a 
cubic  foot,  or  perhaps  equal  to  that  of  an  ordinary 
pasteboard  shoe  box.  The  distance  was  about  a  hundred 
and  fifty  miles.  The  tariff  levied  by  the  express  company 
was  seventy-five  cents.  The  time  taken  to  bring  the 
parcel  was  considerably  more  than  twice  the  length 
of  time  it  could  have  been  carried  and  delivered  in. 
The  company  or  companies  could  have  carried  such  a 
parcel  for  a  charge  of  twelve  to  twenty  cents  and  made 
a  handsome  profit. 

And  then  when  the  service  is  poor  or  careless,  in  addi- 
tion to  being  excessively  high  in  its  charges,  there  is  no 
recourse  for  the  people,  for  public  service  companies 
have  no  ethical  sense  that  would  lead  them  to  any 
amicable  settlement  when  the  shipper  suffers  either 
great  inconvenience  or  loss.  He  has  no  recourse  except 
to  take  the  matter  into  the  courts,  which  does  not  pay 
unless  the  amount  involved  is  large,  and  even  then  he  is 
subjected  to  delays  and  dodges  of  almost  every  con- 
ceivable type.  It  is  the  policy  of  such  corporations  never 
to  pay  out  a  cent  unless  it  is  utterly  impossible  for  them 
to  find  any  way  of  avoiding  it. 

Here  is  another  concrete  example  of  a  frequent  type 

of  private  corporation   methods.   Some  time  ago  I  had 

sixteen  hundred  young  fruit  trees  shipped  from  a  point 

a  few  miles  south  of  Rochester,  New  York,  to  a  point 

[157] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

thirty-four  miles  from  New  York  City  to  the  north. 
It  was  a  lot  of  specially  selected,  high-grade  trees. 
The  nature  of  the  goods  was  known  to  the  railroad 
company.  The  cases  were  labelled  —  perishable,  with- 
out delay,  do  not  allow  to  freeze.  It  was  in  early 
November.  The  time  in  which  they  could  have  been 
carried  handily  with  a  service  organized  for  the  peo- 
ple's convenience  and  welfare  would  have  been  a  period 
of  not  more  than  five  or  six  days.  They  were  on  the 
way  between  fourteen  and  fifteen  days.  The  last 
two  or  three  days  of  their  transit  they  encountered  an 
intensely  cold  and  stormy  period.  Though  ready  to 
plant  them  so  as  to  have  them  in  readiness  for  an  early 
pushing  out  in  the  Spring,  I  was  compelled  to  heal  them 
into  the  ground  for  the  winter,  not  knowing  until  Spring 
would  tell,  whether  they  would  come  out  of  the  ground 
in  a  normal  or  in  a  damaged  condition.  Large  numbers 
proved  to  be  damaged  and  a  block  of  several  hundred 
had  to  be  thrown  out  entirely.  The  various  inconven- 
iences and  losses  incident  upon  this  were,  after  the 
lapse  of  several  months,  put  into  the  form  of  a  letter 
with  an  offer  to  accept  a  very  reasonable  settlement, 
provided  it  were  made  promptly,  and  sent  to  the  claim 
agent  of  the  railroad.  The  amount  was  considerably  less, 
taking  all  things  into  consideration,  than  the  damage 
really  sustained.  In  the  course  of  several  months  several 
letters  passed.  I  finally  received  the  announcement  — 
final,  the  agent  indicated  —  that  a  careful  and  thorough 
examination  of  the  case  had  been  made,  and  that  they 
would  decline  my  offer  as  they  found  themselves  not 
[158] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

liable,  for  another  road  into  whose  hands  they  had  given 
the  freight,  had  carried  it,  they  found,  as  long  a  period 
as  they.  Though  prefering  otherwise,  an  effort  to  secure 
justice  can  now  be  had  only  by  taking  the  matter  into 
the  courts.  But  this  is  simply  an  example  of  but  one  type 
of  inconvenience  and  loss  that  thousands  upon  thousands 
of  people  are  being  put  to  every  year,  in  addition  to 
charges  in  practically  every  case  higher  than  they  should 
be,  because  we  are  sufficiently  stupid  as  to  continue  to 
allow  private  concerns  to  get  possession  of  and  create 
many  times  into  a  monopoly,  the  public  service  that 
should  be  conducted  by  the  people  through  their  agent, 
the  government,  for  the  benefit  of  the  people. 

Another  concrete  case  by  way  of  a  personal  experi- 
ence was  that  of  another  road  in  taking  seventeen  days 
to  carry  some  goods  from  a  point  twelve  miles  out 
of  Boston  to  the  same  destination  —  thirty-four  miles 
north  of  New  York  City.  I  dare  say  there  is  scarcely  a 
reader  of  these  lines  who  has  not  had  similar  experiences 
with  the  privately  owned  corporations  that  abound  in 
the  country.  I  suppose  if  all  could  be  chronicled,  especi- 
ally with  all  the  adjectives  and  all  the  feelings  that 
escaped  at  the  time,  books  could  be  quickly  compiled 
that  would  form  a  very  large  public  library. 

The  people  of  other  countries  have  for  years  been 
taking  all  these  utilities,  such  as  express,  telegraph, 
telephone,  railroads,  etc.,  out  of  the  hands  of  private 
control  and  monopoly  and  through  their  central  govern- 
ments are  supplying  themselves  with  these  services  in 
practically  every  case  greatly  to  their  advantage.  We 
[159] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

are  at  least  a  quarter  of  a  century  behind  them.  Outside 
of  the  United  States  over  two-thirds  of  the  railroad 
mileage  of  the  world  is  owned  and  operated  by  the 
governments  of  the  various  countries.  Ours  is  almost  the 
only  great  country  now  in  the  world  that  does  not  own 
and  operate  the  telegraph  lines.  Those  who  are  acquaint- 
ed with  the  telegraph  service  in  Great  Britain  know  and 
appreciate  the  fact  that  there  they  can  send  messages 
for  twelve  cents  to  any  part  of  Great  Britain,  for  which 
the  charges  here  would  in  no  case  be  less  than  twenty- 
five  cents,  and  sometimes  would  reach  as  high  as  forty 
and  fifty  cents  for  the  same  distance  covered.  In  addition 
to  this  one  is  furnished  there  with  a  much  more  con- 
venient service  both  at  the  point  of  sending  and  in  the 
matter  of  delivery,  for  it  has  all  the  conveniences  of  the 
Postal  Department  with  which  it  is  connected.  The  fact 
that  our  minimum  telegraph  charge  is  twenty-five  cents 
is  quite  as  ridiculous  as  that  our  minimum  express 
charge  is  also  twenty-five  cents. 

In  Great  Britain  the  history  of  the  telegraph  under 
government  ownership  has  been  one  of  continual  en- 
largement and  development  with  the  thought  of  the 
widest  and  best  possible  service  for  all  the  people,  and 
with  the  least  possible  charges.  The  result  is  that  it  has 
become  a  great  public  convenience  serving  all  classes  of 
the  people.  The  charges  here  under  private  ownership 
are  absolutely  prohibitive  for  such  uses  as  are  made  of 
it  there  by  all  the  people  in  common. 

There  was  a  great  fight  made  on  the  part  of  the  pri- 
vate companies  to  retain  their  grip  upon  it  when  the 
[  160  J 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

telegraph  service  was  taken  over  by  the  government. 
Many  arguments  were  used,  and  similar  to  many  en- 
countered here,  against  the  government  doing  the  same 
in  connection  with  these  same  general  utilities.  The 
private  owners  and  those  in  any  way  allied  with  them 
and  influenced  by  them,  were  fairly  bursting  with  rea- 
sons why  the  government  should  not  perform  these  ser- 
vices. Among  them  —  It  was  not  the  government's  bus- 
iness to  telegraph;  the  rates  would  be  higher;  it  would 
not  be  as  progressive  in  its  management  as  the  private 
companies ;  there  would  be  a  deficit  to  be  met ;  the  use  of 
the  telegraph  would  be  less;  there  would  be  less  of  a 
stimulus  to  invention,  and  hence,  new  improvements; 
it  would  be  an  arbitrary  and  unjust  interference  with 
private  rights  for  the  government  to  invade  the  field 
of  private  business,  etc.,  etc.  In  spite  of  these  and  their 
arguments,  and  in  spite  of  every  effort  made  by  the 
private  companies  to  impede  and  to  prevent  the  move- 
ment, the  telegraph  system  of  England  was  bought  by 
the  government  and  made  a  part  of  the  postal  system 
in  1870. 

As  to  the  results  in  this  case,  they  have  been  formulated 
by  a  very  able  authority  as  follows:*  "The  immediate 
results  of  public  ownership  were:  First,  a  reduction  in 
rates  of  one-third  to  one-half;  second,  a  vast  increase 
of  business  and  work  done  by  the  telegraph,  doubling  in 
the  first  year  after  the  transfer;  third,  a  great  extension 

*  The  late  ex-Governor  Altgeld,  of  Illinois,  was  a  most  competent 
and  earnest  advocate  of  the  principle  of  both  municipal  and  national 
ownership  and  control  of  all  public  service  utilities  and  all  "natural 
monopolies." 

[161] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

of  lines  into  the  less  populous  districts,  so  as  to  give  the 
whole  people  the  benefit  of  telegraphic  communication ; 
fourth,  large  additional  facilities  by  opening  more  offices, 
locating  offices  more  conveniently,  and  making  every 
post-office  a  place  where  a  telegram  may  be  deposited ; 
fifth,  a  considerable  economy  by  placing  the  telegraph 
service  with  the  mail  service,  under  single  control,  thus 
avoiding  useless  duplications  in  offices,  etc.;  sixth,  a 
marked  improvement  in  the  service,  the  aim  of  the  post- 
office  being  good  service,  not  dividends;  seventh,  a  de- 
cided gain  to  employees  in  pay,  in  shorter  hours  and  in 
tenure  of  office ;  eighth,  in  unprecedented  advantages  to 
the  press  for  cheap  and  rapid  transmission  of  news  at 
the  same  time  freeing  it  from  the  pressure  of  a  power 
that  claimed  the  right  to  dictate  the  views  and  opinions 
it  should  express;  ninth,  the  development  of  business 
and  strengthening  of  social  ties,  such  as  ties  of  kinship 
and  friendship ;  tenth,  the  removal  of  a  great  antagonism 
and  the  cessation  of  the  vexations  and  costly  conflict 
it  had  caused  between  the  companies  and  the  people. 

"These  were  the  immediate  results.  Now,  after  a 
quarter  of  a  century  of  use,  the  following  further  results 
are  noticeable:  First,  a  further  reduction  of  nearly  one- 
half  in  the  average  cost  of  a  message;  second,  while  the 
population  increased  only  25  per  cent,  the  telegraph 
business  has  increased  1,000  per  cent;  third,  a  six-fold 
extension  of  lines  and  a  fifty-fold  increase  of  facilities; 
fourth,  a  steady  policy  of  expanding  and  improving  the 
service,  adopting  new  inventions,  putting  underground 
hundreds  of  miles  of  wire  that  formerly  ran  over  houses 
[162] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

and  streets,  etc.;  fifth,  a  systematic  effort  to  elevate 
labour,  resulting  in  a  progressive  amelioration  of  the 
condition  of  employees  in  respect  to  wages,  hours, 
tenure,  promotion,  privileges,  etc.;  sixth,  satisfaction 
with  the  telegraph  service,  even  on  the  part  of  conser- 
vatives who  objected  to  the  change  before  it  was  made." 

Gaining  valuable  knowledge  and  experience  in  con- 
nection with  this  great  national  public  utility,  Great 
Britain  is  taking  under  government  ownership  and 
management  her  entire  telephone  system  —  a  portion 
of  which  was  taken  some  years  ago.  The  people  are 
already  great  gainers,  and  I  dare  say  the  government  will 
carry  out  the  same  plan  of  greatly  extending  and  making 
more  convenient  for  the  people  this  great  public  utility 
also. 

Can  we  not  see  a  very  great  similarity  between  this 
government  owned  and  administered  utility  —  Great 
Britain's  telegraph  system  —  and  our  own  government 
owned  and  administered  postal  system  ?  Are  not  the 
constantly  increasing  facilities  for  the  ever  greater 
convenience  and  accommodation  of  the  people,  the  suc- 
cessful business  administration,  the  uniformly  low 
charges  in  our  system  closely  akin  to  the  above  detail 
of  results  in  connection  with  Great  Britain's  national 
telegraph  system  ? 

And  as  important  even  as  are  these  results  is  the  fact 
that  this  makes  one  less  great  source  of  puolic  bribery 
and  corruption  and  debauchery ;  for  the  fact  that  private- 
ly owned  companies  have  gained  control  of  most  of  our 
public  service  utilities,  and  their  efforts  to  retain  and  to 
[163] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

continually  increase  the  scope  of  their  holdings  is  the 
greatest  source  of  our  notorious  political  corruption. 

As  has  been  the  history  and  results  of  our  government 
postal  system,  Great  Britain's  government  telegraph 
system,  so  have  been  in  a  general  way  the  history  and 
results  of  the  government  owned  and  controlled  railroads 
of  Germany,  Belgium,  New  Zealand,  Australia,  and  many 
other  countries  that  have  brought  or  that  are  bringing 
under  government  ownership  and  management  their  rail- 
roads. 

A  recent  number  of  Officio,  Corre  yondence  (  Berlin  ) 
contained  an  important  article  in  regard  to  present 
European  policies  of  railway  management.  The  move- 
ment is  now  determined  toward  nationalization  of  rail- 
ways, especially  in  Germany;  Austria  is  now  aiming 
at  the  same  consummation. 

"Germany,"  says  the  writer,  "which  has  the  most 
extensive  system  o  railways  of  all  European  countries, 
has  decided  at  last  upon  making  an  end  of  the  remnant 
of  private  railways.  By  the  law  of  December  7,  1905, 
the  purchase  of  the  Palatinate  railways,  450  miles  in 
length,  by  the  Kingdom  of  Bavaria,  has  been  provided 
for.  There  now  remains  only  the  railway  from  Lubeck 
to  Buchen,  which  is  but  seventy-five  miles  in  length, 
and  whose  acquisition,  for  the  sake  of  a  unified  system 
of  railway  management,  is  very  desirable.  Rumours 
relative  to  the  purchase  of  this  line  have  been  afloat  on 
the  German  stock  exchanges  during  the  past  year,  but 
they  have  been  mostly  devoid  of  foundation.     .     .     . 

"In  Austria  it  is  anticipated  that  in  the  near  future 
[164] 


In  the  Fire  oj  the  Heart 

the  oldest  and  most  extensive  private  railway,  the 
Kaiser  Ferdinand  Northern  Railway,  1,036  miles  in 
length,  will  be  transformed  into  a  line  managed  by  the 
State.  It  is  no  longer  any  secret  that  the  Austrian  half 
of  the  Hapsburgian  Empire  is  endeavouring  to  obtain  a 
purely  state  system,  such  as  already  exists  in  the  Hun- 
garian half.  Holland,  Belgium,  Switzerland,  Denmark, 
Sweden,  and  Norway  have  already  carried  out  the 
nationalization  of  their  railways.  The  idea  of  a  state 
system  of  railways  has,  however,  met  with  most  success 
during  the  past  year  in  Italy.  Twenty  years  ago  public 
opinion  was  so  strongly  against  the  state  management 
of  railways  that  even  the  railways  already  belonging  to 
the  State  were  leased  to  private  companies.  In  February 
and  April,  1905,  however,  the  Italian  Parliament  de- 
cided upon  a  system  of  state-railway  management. 
Since  July  1,  1905,  over  6,300  miles  have  been  taken 
over  by  the  State.  The  purchase  of  further  lines  is  being 
negotiated,  especially  the  Adriatic  network,  but  no 
result  has  yet  been  arrived  at.  After  the  experiences 
which  Italy  has  gained,  especially  in  the  year  1905,  of 
private  railway  management,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  the  State  will  remain  victor  in  the  struggle  for  the 
possession   of  the  lines." 

No  one  agency,  perhaps,  has  so  contributed  to  the 
growth  of  corruption,  lawlessness,  and  privilege,  has 
stifled  competition  and  all  chance  of  justice  as  between 
dealers  as  well  as  justice  to  shippers  and  buyers  of  all 
types,  and  contributed  to  political  corruption  in  both 
our  state  legislatures  and  in  our  national  legislature  as 
[165] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

our  privately  owned  and  controlled  railroad  systems. 
For  years  we  have  been  trying  to  get  ahead  of  or  to  keep 
even  with  these  abuses,  and  with  what  results,  anyone 
familiar  with  the  records  of  our  Interstate  Commerce 
Commission,  or  familiar  with  the  powerful,  and  up  to 
the  present  time,  almost  uniformly  successful  efforts 
on  the  part  of  the  railroads  to  defeat  and  escape  all 
public  efforts  to  make  them  reasonably  fair  and  just 
and  to  have  them  stop  their  open  and  villainous  disre- 
gard of  the  laws,  will  fully  comprehend. 

If  the  same  efforts  that  have  been  spent,  and  in  great 
part  vainly,  in  the  various  attempts  to  make  the  railroads 
of  the  country  simply  law  abiding  and  decent  in  the 
conduct  of  their  affairs  and  in  their  treatment  of  the 
public,  if  these  efforts  I  repeat,  had  been  spent  in 
evolving  plans  in  getting  them  into  operation  under 
government  administration,  we  could  to-day  be  standing 
at  least  near  the  point  of  advancement  that  other  coun- 
tries that  are  so  far  ahead  of  us  have  made. 

Though  it  will  perhaps  be  one  of  the  last  of  our  great 
public  utilities  to  come  completely  under  government 
ownership  on  account  of  the  powerful  private  interests 
that  will  in  every  possible  way  oppose  it,  nevertheless 
it  is  one  of  the  most  important  from  the  standpoint 
of  the  great  common  welfare.  And  while  we  have  been 
spending  time  trying  to  regulate  them  and  to  secure 
some  little  measure  of  justice  from  them,  to  say  nothing 
of  our  charges  being  higher  than  those  in  any  other 
modern  country  in  the  world,  other  countries  have 
solved  this  problem  by  going  boldly  forward  and  ad- 
[1C6] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
ministering  their  railroads  for  the  people's  and  for 
the  great  public  benefit,  the  same  as  we  shall  find  that 
we  shall  do  eventually.  And  while  at  the  present  state 
of  affairs  it  is  well  that  still  greater  efforts  at  control 
and  regulation  be  made,  at  the  same  time  we  shall  lose 
much  if  in  the  meanwhile  we  are  not  putting  forth  efforts 
looking  to  the  time  when  this  great  public  necessity 
utility  be  taken  under  government  ownership  and  con- 
ducted in  the  interests  of  all  the  people. 

Announcement  has  recently  been  made  that  the  Court* 
has  approved  of  proposed  additional  subway  routes 
in  New  York  City,  aggregating  nineteen  in  number  and 
costing  some  $450,000,000.  It  is  to  be  seen  whether  the 
Rapid  Transit  Commission  will  again  deliver  the 
people's  rights  and  tremendous  future  properties  over 
to  a  band  of  traction  financiers,  agents  of  foreign  capi- 
talists, the  Rothschilds,  or  whether  they  will  have  a 
sufficiently  strudy  stamina  to  resist  these  agencies, 
and  will  have  the  brains  to  find  a  method  or  methods 
whereby  these  can  be  built,  owned,  and  controlled  by 
the  great  city  itself.  The  people  have  to  considerable 
extent  already  been  aroused  to  the  iniquity  perpetrated 
in  connection  with  the  subway  already  built,  an  iniquity 
that  will  reveal  itself  in  greater  proportions,  as  a  rapidly 
increasing  intelligence  along  these  lines  becomes  more 
and  more  the  possession  of  the  people.  I  think,  more- 
over, they  will  scarcely  sit  quietly  and  witness  a  repeti- 
tion of  such  methods.  Boards  and  Commissions  of  the 
same  nature  in  the  various  and  numerous  cities  of  other 

*The  Appellate  Division,  the  Supreme  Court. 
[167] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

countries  can  find  the  brain  power  and  a  sufficient  fer- 
tility of  resources  to  hold  such  properties  for  the  people, 
and  some  very  legitimate  questions  will  be  asked,  if 
it  becomes  apparent  that  they  cannot  be  found  by 
members  of  this  commission,  as  also  by  similar  commis- 
sions here.  The  decision  of  the  Court  approves  the  routes 
of  the  subway  system  as  laid  out  on  paper  by  the  Rapid 
Transit  Commission,  but  a  legal  point  never  suggested 
before,  and  "  which, "  as  a  writer  in  a  leading  New  York 
paper*  says,  "may  upset  the  financial  calculations  of 
the  Rapid  Transit  Commission,"  is  pointed  out  by  the 
Court  in  its  opinion.  Continuing,  the  writer  of  the  article 
says:  "the  vote  of  the  people  in  1894  that  subways 
should  be  constructed  with  public  funds  renders  it 
questionable,  say  the  judges,  if  it  is  'permissible  by 
law '  to  build  them  with  private  capital,  as  contemplated. 
'Upon  which  question/  says  the  opinion  significantly, 
'because  not  before  us,  we  express  no  opinion.'  Chief 
Justice  O'Brien,  who  writes  the  opinion,  gives  as  one  of 
the  most  weighty  reasons  for  attaching  a  condition  to 
the  complete  approval  of  the  system,  that  such  a  course 
might  preclude  the  possibility  of  building  a  municipally 
owned  and  operated  system."  Following  are  his  own 
words : 

"  By  the  adoption  of  the  proposed  plan  and  the  practi- 
cal monopolizing  of  all  the  city's  streets,  wedded  to  a  sin- 
gle scheme  of  transit  construction  or  management,  the 
people  are  practically  forever  excluded  from  asserting 
and  exercising  the  right,  which  has  much  of  reason  and 

*  New  York  American,  July  13,  1906. 
[168] 


In  the  Fire  of  tJie  Heart 
argument  In  its  support,  to  wit:  to  own  and  operate  their 
municipal  subways. 

"  It  may  be  that  in  a  year  or  a  few  years  the  vast  ma- 
jority of  the  people  of  this  greater  city,  in  their  enlightened 
judgment,  will  demand  the  construction  and  operation 
of  their  own  transportation  facilities.     .     . 

So  free  have  public  service  corporations  been  in  the 
use  of  money  in  bribing  and  corrupting  public  officials 
to  get  the  people's  public  property  into  their  own  hands, 
that  there  comes  a  time  when  even  they  have  to  pay  the 
penalty  in  having  to  part  with  a  greater  amount  of  their 
profits  than  they  would  voluntarily  pay.  They  have 
created  such  a  debauched  condition  in  some  city  coun- 
cils and  state  legislatures  that  their  first  offers  of  two 
thousand  or  five  thousand  dollars  for  votes  in  connec- 
tion with  some  particular  measures,  have  so  emboldened 
the  members  as  time  has  passed,  that  they  have  de- 
manded as  high  as  fifty  thousand  and  even  more,  for 
votes  in  connection  with  other  measures.  Sometimes 
we  hear  the  managers  of  corporations  complaining  that 
they  are  held  up,  blackmailed,  by  councilmen  and 
legislators.  Their  methods  have  instituted  such  foul- 
ness  and  venality  that  sometimes  in  the  end  it  does 
amount  to  this.  They  have  themselves  to  blame.  The 
more  bold  have  been  known  at  times  to  pay  with  checks ; 
those  more  cautious  and  wary  pay  with  money;  the 
still  more  cautious  and  wary  give  dividend  paying  stocks 
in  the  company  or  some  allied  company,  and  pledge 
in  addition  their  continued  political  safe  keeping  to  the 
member,  and  others  adopt  still  other  methods. 
[109] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

There  are  those  who  get  elected  to  our  city  councils 
and  state  legislatures  for  the  sole  purpose  of  making 
deals  with  these  corporations,  and  getting  out  of  the 
office  in  this  way  the  largest  amounts  they  can  get. 
Corporations  then  again,  have  their  own  particular  men 
elected,  with  whom  they  have  made  a  deal  before  elec- 
tion, or  with  whom  there  is  the  understanding  that  they 
command  their  services  after  their  election. 

Some  corporations  are  known  to  have  in  city  councils 
and  state  legislatures  a  member  whom  they  support 
and  pay  to  look  regularly  after  their  interests.  Some- 
times to  disarm  suspicion  a  very  good  type  of  citizen  — 
whom  they  judge  weak  on  the  itchy  palm  side  —  is 
induced  to  accept  nomination,  his  election  is  secured 
by  them,  and  he  is  then  manipulated  according  to  their 
interests.  Political  machines  do  the  same.  Once  in  a 
great  while  they  get  fooled  by  not  rightly  calculating 
their  man.  Such  was  the  case  when  the  machine  in  St. 
Louis  promoted  the  selection  of  Joseph  W.  Folk  for 
the  office  of  Circuit  Attorney.  Mr.  Folk  at  the  time  said 
substantially  that  if  elected  he  must  have  a  free  hand, 
and  that  he  would  conduct  the  affairs  of  the  office  in  his 
own  way.  They  thought  he  was  merely  talking.  Some, 
for  their  error  in  calculation  in  this  case,  are  now  serving 
good  penitentiary  time.  While  speaking  of  Mr.  Folk,  I 
think  it  may  not  be  uninteresting  to  note  some  of  his 
findings  when  the  bills  of  the  old  score  were  one  day 
finally  presented  for  redemption.  The  following  is  from 
a  public  address  delivered  at  an  important  centre  of  the 
state  of  which  he  is  now  Governor: 
[170] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

"For  another  franchise  $250,000  in  bribes  was  paid 
to  the  members  of  the  preceding  assembly.  This  fran- 
chise was  afterward  sold  for  $1,250,000,  but  the  city 
received  not  a  cent.  Twenty-three  of  the  twenty-eight 
members  of  the  House  of  Delegates  took  bribes  of  $3,000 
each  for  this  franchise.  Seven  members  of  the  council 
obtained  from  $10,000  to  $17,500  each  for  their  votes. 
One  councilman  was  given  $25,000  to  vote  against  the 
franchise  and  afterward  accepted  $50,000  to  vote  in 
favour  of  it.  He  returned  the  $25,000  to  the  man  who 
gave  it  to  him,  saying  he  did  not  believe  he  could 
'honestly'  keep  it  without  'earning'  it  by  giving  his  vote 
in  accordance  with  the  terms  of  purchase.  Upon  re- 
flection he  likewise  sent  the  $50,000  back,  with  the  hope 
of  getting  more.  He  finally  voted  for  tne  ordinance  with 
the  expectation  and  under  promise  of  obtaining  $100,000 
for  his  vote.  His  friend,  the  promoter,  disappointed  him 
by  leaving  the  city  early  the  next  day  without  paying  him. 
More  in  sorrow  than  in  anger  the  official  tracked  the 
promoter  to  New  York,  ana  after  mucn  aifhculty  suc- 
ceeded in  obtaining  $o,000,  out  not  untn  tne  promoter 
had  him  sign  a  certificate  oi  cnaracter  saying,  'I  have 
heard  rumours  in  St.  Louis  that  you  paia  memoers  of  the 
assembly  for  their  votes.  I  wan„  to  say  vxxat  I  am  in  a 
position  to  know,  and  I  do  know  *^at  you  are  as  far 
above  offering  a  bribe  as  I  am  above  receiving  one.' 
This  was  literally  true,  as  the  official  had  taken  bribes 
right  and  left,  and  the  promoter  had  boodled  on  a  gigan- 
tic scale  in  getting  his  bill  through  the  municipal  as- 
sembly. Seven  members  of  the  council,  elected  to  serve 
[171] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

the  people  at  a  salary  of  $300  a  year,  were  paid  a  regular 
salary  of  $5,000  yearly  to  represent  corporate  interests. 
A  lighting  bill  was  bribed  through  the  House  of  Dele- 
gates for  $47,500.  The  bargain  was  made  right  on  the 
floor  of  the  House.  The  money  was  given  to  one  of  the 
members,  and  after  the  meeting  they  met  in  the  home 
of  one  of  their  number,  where  the  'pie'  was  cut  and  the 
money  divided.  .  .  .  Nineteen  members  of  another 
House  of  Delegates  obtained  $2,000  each  as  bribes  for 
their  votes  on  still  another  franchise. 

"  Men  would  run  for  a  seat  in  the  municipal  assembly 
with  the  sole  object  of  making  money  by  the  prostitution 
of  their  position.  The  scheme  of  corruption  was  systema- 
tic and  far-reaching.  The  people  were  careless;  the 
public  conscience  was  asleep.  These  city  legislators 
went  on  without  hindrance.  They  devised  a  scheme  of 
selling  the  water-works,  which  belonged  to  the  city,  for 
$15,000,000,  the  works  being  worth  about  $40,000,000. 
They  planned  to  get  $100,000  apiece  for  their  votes 
on  this.  The  proposed  sale  failed,  because  of  a  wise 
provision  of  the  city  charter  forbidding  unconditional 
alienation.  Then  their  gloating  eyes  fell  on  the  old 
court  house  with  the  gilded  dome.  They  thought  of 
selling  that.  They  hoped  to  obtain  $100,000  apiece  for 
their  votes  on  this.  Then  they  concluded  to  sell  the 
Union  Market,  but  the  market  men  had  considerable 
political  influence.  With  this  and  the  sum  of  $20,000 
they  raised  and  paid  the  members  they  succeeded  in 
stopping  the  sale.  Then  came  the  exposure.  Now  some 
of  these  representatives  are  fugitives  from  justice  in 
[172] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

foreign  countries:  others  have  turned  State's  evidence; 
the  remainder  have  faced  juries,  and  eighteen  of  these 
givers  and  takers  of  bribes  have  received  sentences 
ranging  from  two  years  to  seven  years  in  the  penitentiary. 
.  .  .  These  conditions  are  the  outgrowth  of  the 
commercialism  of  our  times. " 

Various  public  service  corporations  are  known  to 
contribute  very  liberally  to  one  or  the  other  political 
party  in  campaign  funds.  Usually  it  is  the  dominant 
party  in  either  state  or  city  according  as  their  needs  lie. 
Sometimes  to  be  on  the  safe  side  they  are  large  contri- 
butors to  the  campaign  funds  of  both  parties.  Their 
profits  taken  directly  from  the  people's  pockets  are  gen- 
erally so  enormous  that  they  can  afford  to  do  this,  in 
addition  to  maintaining  large  corruption  funds  for 
definite  action  later  on. 

That  there  are  others  —  and  the  numbers  now  are  very 
large  —  who  realize  these  facts  is  evidenced  by  the 
following  expression  from  the  editor  of  a  leading  maga- 
zine: "The  chief  agencies  of  corruption,  bribery,  and 
debauchery  of  the  legislative,  executive  and  judicial 
departments  of  government,  as  has  been  shown  time  and 
again,  are  found  in  the  public  service  corporations  which 
operate  natural  monopolies  or  those  utilities  in  which 
all  the  people  are  interested.  To  destroy  this  fountain- 
head  of  political  corruption  and  to  give  to  all  the  people 
all  the  benefits  flowing  from  the  operation  of  public 
utilities  or  natural  monopolies,  the  city,  state  and  nation, 
or  the  people,  should  own  and  operate  them  for  the 
good  of  the  community  at  large. " 
[173] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

This  also  even  though  longer,  from  one  of  the  sanest 
and  keenest  observers  of  our  social  and  political  affairs, 
and  formerly  governor  of  one  of  our  leading  states: 
"Private  monopolies  furnish  the  hand  that  bribes  by 
day  and  bribes  by  night,  that  pollutes  everything  it 
touches,  and  the  existence  of  corruption  in  our  cities 
and  in  our  state  and  national  governments  furnishes  the 
strongest  argument  in  favour  of  wiping  out  all  private 
monopolies,  for  it  will  give  the  people  back  their  govern- 
ment. The  great  question  in  America  to-day  is  how  to 
restore  republican  government,  which  has  been  destroyed 
by  the  corporations.  They  control  not  only  the  local 
city  governments,  but  they  control  the  state  govern- 
ments and  the  national  government.  They  decide  what 
the  Legislature  may  and  may  not  do,  what  Congress 
may  and  may  not  do;  they  determine  the  policies  of 
political  parties,  and  they  have  destroyed  the  vitality 
of  both  political  parties. 

"  Only  a  few  weeks  ago  the  Chicago  Inter-Ocean  and 
the  Chicago  Record-Herald,  two  of  the  most  influential 
Republican  papers  in  America,  lamented  the  decadence 
of  the  House  of  Representatives  at  Washington  and 
declared  that  Congress  had  practically  abdicated  its 
functions  to  the  monopolies;  that  great  public  questions 
were  no  longer  discussed  upon  their  merits,  but  were 
decided  arbitrarily  by  the  majority,  and  the  decision 
was  not  the  result  of  investigation  and  discussion,  but 
was  the  arbitrary  dictation  of  the  lobbyists. 

"A   mere   change  of  party   administration   signifies 
nothing  so  long  as  the  same  slimy  hands  control  the 
[174] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

policy  of  government.  We  had  two  such  changes,  and 
their  history  was  written  with  the  dirty  fingers  of  the 
exploiters.  We  need  a  change  of  policy.  Instead  of  being 
owned  the  people  must  he  the  owners,  instead  of  being 
lambs  to  be  shorn  they  must  be  masters  of  the  fold. 
Our  industries  and  our  great  public  utilities  were  built 
with  the  money  and  the  industry  and  the  genius  of  the 
American  people,  but  they  have  passed  out  of  the  hands 
of  the  people  who  made  them  and  are  now  controlled 
by  manipulators,  controlled  by  bankers,  by  brokers, 
by  speculators. 

"These  men  do  not  build  railroads.  They  do  not 
build  factories;  they  do  not  build  cities;  they  do  not 
create  anything;  they  simply  grab  what  other  people 
have  created.  As  a  rule,  they  are  mere  birds  of  prey, 
tearing  the  flesh  of  the  men  and  women  who  work  with 
their  hands,  eating  the  vitals  of  the  men  and  women 
who  do  the  work  of  the  land  and  who  made  civilization 
possible  on  this  earth. 

"  No  republic  can  endure  that  remains  in  the  clutches 
of  these  birds  of  prey;  they  use  government  as  a  con- 
venience in  the  process  of  exploitation,  extortion  and 
robbery.  It  is  among  the  newly  made  and  corrupt  rich 
that  we  find  the  spirit  of  snobbery  and  flunkeyism  that 
apologizes  for  republican  institutions.  It  is  the  monopo- 
lists who  demand  the  restriction  of  free  speech  and  of 
a  free  press.  They  not  only  plunder  the  people,  but  they 
would  rob  them  of  their  liberties.     .     .     . 

"If  there  were  no  other  reason  why  the  peo- 
ple should  own  the  monopolies  than  that  it  will 
[175] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

give  them   back    their  government,  that  reason  is   in 
itself  sufficient." 

The  difference  in  the  policies  and  the  management 
of  the  various  public  service  utilities  in  those  countries 
where  they  are  moving,  and  so  successfully,  along  the 
lines  of  public  ownership  and  operation,  or  manage- 
ment, and  the  prevailing  policies  and  methods  of 
management  among  us  should  I  think  be  noted.  In 
case  of  the  former,  the  best  and  the  most  up-to-date 
service,  with  a  minimum  of  cost  to  the  people  is  the 
policy.  Not  the  making  of  large  dividends,  but  using 
what  would  otherwise  be  larger  profits  for  the  greater 
convenience  and  better  accommodation  of  the  largest 
number  of  people  at  the  lowest  reasonable  cost.  In  case 
of  transit,  for  example,  municipal  or  state,  the  opening 
up  of  sections  and  properties  in  new  and  outlying  dis- 
tricts, thus  affording  desirable  and  real  homes  to  large 
numbers  of  people  who  otherwise  would  be  compelled 
to  remain  as  tenants  in  the  already  densely  populated 
portions,  because  unable  economically  to  reach  the 
districts  where  they  can  have  real  homes  of  which  they 
may  become  owners.  It  is  the  welfare  of  the  people,  of 
the  largest  numbers  of  the  people,  that  is  continually 
sought  after.  And  what  do  we  find  here  ?  We  find  these 
utilities,  with  a  minor  exception  here  and  there,  organiz- 
ed and  managed  with  an  eye  single  to  the  largest 
dividends  that  can  be  extracted  from  the  people,  and 
many  times  large  dividends  even  on  stock  watered  to 
two,  three  and  even  four  times  its  real  value,  a  proceed- 
ing, in  my  judgment,  criminal  in  its  nature  and  that 
[176] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

should  not  much  longer  be  permitted.  Then  on  top  of 
all  this,  after  giving  the  vast  sums  we  are  continually 
giving  to  those  private  individuals  and  companies  by 
way  of  franchises  and  privileges,  the  use  of  streets, 
highways,  etc.,  we  are  struggling  continually  to  have 
them,  deal  not  honourably  and  fairly  with  us,  but  to  be 
even  decent  in  their  charges  and  service  and  general 
treatment  of  their  patrons.  We  have  many  times  to 
fight  legally  and  against  the  ablest  legal  talent  that  our 
combined  contributions  enable  them  to  employ,  to 
secure  the  most  elemental  rights,  and  many  times  the 
most  ordinary  forms  of  decency  in  treatment.  The 
above  is  true  in  regard  to  practically  all  public  service 
corporations,  true  of  all  natural  monopolies  of  munici- 
pal, state,  or  national  character.  How  much  better  the 
public  welfare  could  be  served  if  these  utilities  were  in 
the  hands  of  the  people  moving  always  and  directly 
along  the  lines  of  their  own  best  interests. 

There  are  exceptions.  In  numbers  of  our  smaller 
places  the  service  is  all  that  could  be  expected  from  the 
profits  received,  that  is,  all  that  could  be  expected  under 
private  ownership.  During  the  past  year,  a  well-known 
citizen  of  Australia,  President  of  the  Federated  Council 
of  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  of  Australia,  in  visiting 
Chicago,  spoke  quite  at  length  concerning  their  own 
methods  along  these  lines  and  the  methods  in  other 
countries  compared  to  our  own  methods.  The  following 
are  two  or  three  brief  paragraphs  from  what  he  had  to 
say   concerning   his    observations: 

"In  Australia  all  public  utilities  are  owned  by  the 
[177  J 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

state  or  municipality,  that  includes  the  telephones, 
the  telegraphs,  the  railroads,  the  street  railways  and 
the  water- works.  Under  public  ownership  we  have  con- 
structed some  of  the  greatest  water- works  in  the  world. 

"We,  in  Australia,  have  become  firmly  convinced  of 
the  principle  that  municipal  ownership  of  public  utilities 
means  their  administration  for  the  people  with  the 
simple  object  of  securing  the  most  benefits  for  the 
smallest  price. 

"  The  truth  of  our  theories  seems  to  be  demonstrated 
here  in  Chicago,  where  the  people  have  to  ride  in  dog 
boxes  that  are  a  disgrace  to  humanity.  Do  you  suppose 
that  our  people  in  Sydney,  or  any  other  Australian  city, 
would  stand  for  any  such  coops  for  a  minute  as  Chicago 
folks  are  compelled  to  ride  in  ?  Why,  if  any  attempt 
were  made  to  run  such  cars  along  our  streets,  the  people 
would  be  up  in  arms  in  an  hour  and  jam  mass  meetings 
50,000  strong."* 

What  he  would  say  were  he  to  speak  in  a  similar 
manner  of  his  observations  and  findings  in  New  York, 
it  is  by  no  means  difficult  to  imagine. 

A  right  good  concrete  illustration  of  the  point  im- 
mediately in  hand,  comes  f  om  Milan,  Italy.  Prior  to 
1897  the  street  railways  were  owned  by  a  corporation 
which  paid  to  the  city  a  lump  sum  of  $200,000  a  year. 
"Fares  were  high,  service  was  poor,  employees  were 
overworked  and  underpaid;  and  the  public  was  treated 
pretty  much  as  the  New  York  public  is  treated  —  like 
cattle."  But  thanks  to  municipal  ownership  in  con- 
*  Chicago  Record  Herald,  October  26,  1905. 
[178] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
nection  with  this  utility,  the  city  owns  the  tracks  and 
has  a  supervising  control  over  its  entire  railway  system. 
It  now  receives  an  annual  income  of  $600,000,  and 
one  of  the  most  valuable  lessons  for  us,  perhaps,  is  the 
following :  —  During  two  hours  each  day  the  fare  on 
the  street  railways  is  the  equivalent  of  one  cent ;  during 
the  balance  of  the  day  it  is  the  equivalent  of  two  cents. 
And  the  operating  company,  which  has  a  twenty  year 
contract,  is  able  to  declare  right  good  dividends  from  its 
share  of  the  annual  arnings  of  $1,500,000.  Since  the 
city  has  owned  its  street  railways  line,  fares  have  been 
reduced  as  above,  service  has  been  vastly  improved, 
employees  hours  have  been  reduced  and  their  time 
made  more  regular  with  a  guaranteed  rest  of  four  days 
in  each  month,  while  at  the  same  time  their  wages 
have  been  increased.  Thus  the  people  of  Milan,  the 
second  city  in  the  country,  have  the  satisfaction  of 
knowing  that  they  have  one  of  the  best  street  railway 
systems  of  any  city  in  the  country  —  this  satisfaction 
itself  a  valuable  asset  of  the  people.  Isn't  it  really  about 
time  that  we  "  progressive  "  American  people  began  to 
sit  up  and  take  note? 

The  owners  of  these  public  service  utilities  find  a  way 
in  spite  of  all  efforts  against  it  to  make  them  monopolies, 
and  the  people  are  then  at  their  mercy.  A  safe  and  sane 
principle  is  this,  if  in  connection  with  anything  there  is 
a  monopoly  or  the  possibility  of  a  monopoly,  then  the 
people  should  own  and  control  that  monopoly.  It  then 
becomes  a  benefit  to  all  alike  and  an  injury  to  none. 
It  doesn't  enrich  the  few  while  it  helps  economically  to 
[  179  ] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

enslave  the  many,  as  at  the  same  time  it  abounds  in 
corruption  and  helps  undermine  and  paralyze  republi- 
can institutions.  Why  shouldn't  the  people,  as  many 
are  asking  now,  through  their  agent,  the  government, 
own  and  develop  the  coal  fields,  upon  the  product  of 
which  practically  all  are  dependent.  Why  shouldn't  we 
get  our  coal  cheaper,  at  a  more  uniform  price,  and  free 
from  the  inconvenience  and  distress  that  result  from 
the  frequent  disturbances  between  employer  and  em- 
ployee? This  is  something  that  would  influence  in  a 
very  direct  way  the  economic,  and  hence  the  entire  wel- 
fare of  every  man,  woman  and  child  in  the  country. 
Isn't  it  a  saner  and  a  more  common-sense  principle  that 
all  be  able  to  obtain  this  necessity  at  the  great  saving 
that  it  could  be  obtained  at,  and  at  a  steady  and  uniform 
price,  than  that  it  be  allowed  to  be  monopolized  by  the 
few  who  have  become  already  unduly  rich,  and  who  are 
free  to  exact  from  the  people  whatever  tribute  they  may 
see  fit,  even  to  the  extent  of  causing  great  suffering  and 
not  infrequently  even  death  ? 

The  principle  that  thoughtful  men  everywhere  are 
beginning  to  recognize  as  a  sound  and  common-sense 
principle  is  this,  that  all  natural  monopolies  be  brought 
under  government  ownership  and  control,  municipal, 
state,  or  national,  according  to  the  nature  of  each,  and 
so  be  administered  for  the  direct  benefit  of  all  the  people 
in  common,  in  distinction  from  their  being  grabbed 
and  cornered  and  through  corruption  and  debauchery 
and  venality  monopolized  for  the  over-enrichment  of 
the  few.  Under  the  head  of  natural  monopolies  would 
[180] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

fall  such  utilities  as  pertain  to  dwellers  in  the  city,  such 
as  water,  gas,  electricity,  transit,  etc.,  and  those  that 
come  under  the  head  of  state  and  national  ownership 
and  control,  such  as  the  postal  service,  the  telegraph, 
the  telephone,  the  express,  the  railroads,  the  coal  fields, 
the  oil  fields,  and  mines  of  sufficiently  important  types. 
Can  any  argument,  that  will  stand  a  thorough  and  all 
round  examination,  be  put  forth  why  these  great  public 
necessity  utilities  should  not,  in  some  way,  be  held  and 
administered  for  the  common  good  of  all  the  people  ? 

The  principle  of  public  ownership  is  sound  —  the 
ownership  of  those  utilities,  that  from  their  nature 
become  or  may  become  monopolies,  or  of  those  utilities 
that  from  their  nature  derive  their  values  from  the 
common  needs  of  the  people. 

Whether  now  or  as  time  passes  it  may  be  practicable 
or  advisable  that  all  such  utilities  come  under  public 
ownership  and  control,  is  something  that  can  be  deter- 
mined only  by  the  people  in  a  reckoning  with  the  condi- 
tions in  each  particular  locality  and  in  each  particular 
case.  But  there  is  a  principle  thoroughly  safe  as  well  as 
sound  that  should  be  put  into  immediate  operation  in 
every  state,  namely,  that  each  locality  have  the  right 
—  by  statute,  as  it  has  the  natural  moral  right  —  to 
purchase,  or  to  construct  and  own,  and  to  operate  or 
control  such  of  its  utilities,  as  at  any  time  it  may  decide 
upon.  And  any  legislator  who  sees  fit  to  oppose,  or  who 
dares  record  his  vote  against  any  enabling  measure 
of  this  nature,  gives  evidence,  with  possibly  a  rare  ex- 
ception, of  his  subserviency  to  certain  agencies  that  do  not 
[181] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

represent  the  people,  or  of  his  anticipation  of  such 
subserviency,  and  these  are  the  men  who,  as  we  get  a 
little  more  stamina  in  the  recognition  of  and  the  per- 
formance of  our  duties  as  citizens  of  a  progressive  and 
advancing  nation,  will  be  quickly  read  out  of  public  life. 

If  a  private  company  is  giving  a  good  service  at  a 
reasonable  cost,  and  is  decent  and  honourable  in  its 
methods  and  in  its  dealings  with  the  public,  there  may 
be  no  reason,  and  in  large  numbers  of  cases  there  will 
be  found  no  reason  for  interfering  with  it.  But,  where 
such  is  not  the  case  the  city  should  have  the  right  even 
for  the  protection  to  say  nothing  of  the  welfare  of  its 
people,  either  to  bring  such  concern  to  terms,  or  to 
throw  it  out  of  business  entirely.  The  fact  of  the  city 
having  such  right,  will,  of  itself  act  as  a  tremendous 
protection,  and  the  chances  are  that  such  right  would 
have  to  be  exercised  only  now  and  then  as  occasion 
might  demand.  In  regard  to  this  principle  I  think  all 
fair  and  unbiassed  minds  cannot  fail  to  agree.  Numer- 
ous examples  could  be  given  of  how  this  principle  has  al- 
ready worked.  Following  is  a  case  of  how  it  works  when 
there  is  an  actual  worker  behind  the  works.  I  quote  from  a 
recent  issue  of  a  leading  New  York  paper,*  an  editorial 
with  the  heading,  "  Cleveland's  Lesson  to  New  York. " 

"What  an  intelligent  Mayor  can  do  with  a  traction 
monopoly  is  illustrated  by  the  news  from  Cleveland. 
Cleveland  had  a  merger  of  a  number  of  street-car  com- 
panies with  a  watered  capitalization  like  that  of  the 
Interborough-Metropolitan.  But  Cleveland  also  had  a 

*  The  New  York  World,  July  21,  1906. 
[  182] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

Mayor,  Tom  Johnson,  who  had  been  in  the  street- 
railroad  business  and  knew  all  about  its  costs,  possibili- 
ties and  profits. 

"Instead  of  doing  business  with  himself  in  his  dual 
capacity  of  Mayor  and  railroad  man,  Tom  Johnson 
acted  only  for  the  people  of  Cleveland.  He  threatened 
that  if  the  traction  monopoly  did  not  make  better  terms 
with  the  people  he  would  have  their  routes  paralleled 
with  three-cent-fare  lines.  Rather  than  fight  the  munici- 
pality the  traction  monopoly  now  offers  to  sell  seven 
tickets  for  a  quarter,  to  give  universal  transfers  and  to 
build    what    extensions    Mayor   Johnson    may    direct. 

"  The  way  to  simmer  down  a  monopoly  is  to  threaten 
it  with  competition  at  a  reasonable  price  and  to  bring 
it  thus  to  terms.  That  is  the  opportunity  New  York 
has  with  its  new  subways.  One  subway  wTith  a  three- 
cent  fare  would  force  the  traction  monopoly  to  reduce 
its  fares  or  to  lose  all  competitive  business.  If  this  new 
subway  had  branches  to  Queens  County  and  Brooklyn 
it  would  compel  the  Brooklyn  Rapid  Transit  and  the 
Interborough  merger  to  exchange  free  transfers  or  they 
would  lose  the  Interborough  business. " 

This  shows  what  can  be  done  by  a  man  who  has 
actually  at  heart  the  interests  of  his  fellow-men,  who 
has  in  his  brain  structure  a  certain  quality  we  designate 
by  the  term  stamina,  and  who  is  honest  and  straight- 
forward in  his  general  make-up.  Moreover,  a  man  who 
thus  serves  his  city  in  a  fearless  and  an  honourable  way, 
serves  not  it  alone,  but  his  example  is  an  inspiration 
whose  bounds  may  know  no  end. 
[183] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

The  fact  that  practically  all  of  our  cities,  and  even  our 
larger  ones,  are  still  in  their  infancy,  shows  how  careful 
and  how  zealous  their  people  should  be  in  the  disposition 
of  their  public  utilities,  for  the  values  of  these  will,  as 
time  passes,  increase  to  tremendous  proportions. 

On  account  of  these  natural  monopolies  being  grabbed 
and  monopolized  for  the  enrichment  of  the  few,  and 
therefore  not  administered  for  the  common  good  of  all 
the  people,  the  two  greatest  evils  among  us  as  a  nation 
have  gradually  come  about.  The  one  lies  in  the  great 
inequality  in  the  distribution  of  the  wealth  of  the  country, 
in  that  we  have  the  few  thousands  of  the  overly  and 
sometimes  criminally  rich,  over  against  the  millions 
of  the  poor  and  resulting  in  the  almost  unbelievable 
conditions  we  have  already  noted.  If  you  will  search 
carefully  you  will  find  that  practically  all  the  great 
fortunes  now  held  by  individuals  or  families  have  been 
built  up  through  the  ownership  and  control,  or  the 
monopoly,  of  these  public  service  utilities  or  these  great 
natural  monopolies.  Look  carefully  and  see  if  this  is 
not  true.  Once  in  a  while  you  will  find  an  exception,  a 
minor  exception,  but  so  rarely  that  the  other  becomes 
pre-eminently  the  rule. 

To  these  as  the  new  generation  comes  along,  we  owe 
our  continually  increasing  numbers  of  the  "  idle  rich, " 
some  of  whom  —  both  men  and  women  —  have  never 
been  known  to  do  an  honest  day's  work  in  their  lives. 
They  live  and  fare  sumptuously,  they  roll  in  wealth, 
and  all  the  time,  as  John  Steward  Mill  has  pointed  out, 
they  are  being  supported  by  the  daily  toil  of  others. 
[184] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
It  is  they  who  become  in  time  eligible  to  the  lists  of  the 
400.  Gradually  they  come  to  believe  that  they  are  made 
of  a  different  type  of  clay  from  those  about  them,  that 
they  were  made  to  be  served  and  supported  by  others, 
and  so  also  their  children.  In  this  way  many  become 
"  smart "  and  foolish  and  gradually  prepare  the  way  for 
their  decendents  either  immediate  or  remote,  to  become 
degenerates  or  linked  with  degenerates,  through  whom 
the  ability  to  live  longer  through  the  support  of  others, 
becomes  dissipated.  It  is  they  who  lose  the  respect  of 
the  great  common  people,  and  when  this  is  once  lost 
something  is  lost  that  no  amount  of  wealth  or  supposed 
station  will  ever  compensate  for.  This  is  true  as  every 
sane  person  will  realize,  not  of  all,  by  any  means,  but 
it  is  true  of  very  many. 

The  second  great  evil  lies  in  the  vast  amount  of  bribery 
and  corruption  and  debauchery  that  has  come  about 
in  public  and  political  life,  the  riding  over  the  rights 
of  the  people  that  these  agencies  have  brought  about, 
and  that  will  eventually  mark  the  downfall  of  our  very 
institutions  if  not  speedily  checked  and  eradicated. 
It  is  in  this  way  that  the  liberties  of  the  people  in  all 
nations  that  have  flourished  and  then  either  perished 
or  degenerated,  have  been  undermined.  Civilizations 
perish  through  internal  decay,  not  through  outside  agen- 
cies. Such  has  been  the  rule  with  scarcely  an  exception. 

A  detail  of  the  political  intrigues  of  the  companies 

and  corporations  in  their  manipulations  of  the  people's 

representatives  in  city  councils  and  in  state  and  national 

legislatures  for  their  own  private  business  ends,  would 

[185] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

fill  volume  after  volume.  Most  people  are  now  familiar 
with  it  in  some  form  or  another.  We  ean  see  how  handi- 
capped are  the  forces  for  reform  and  for  representative 
government  in  struggling  against  company  and  corpora- 
tion rule  and  its  accompanying  corruption.  The  fact 
that  great  private  wealth  so  dominates  legislators  is 
proof  in  itself  that  it  is  not  healthy.  When,  therefore, 
these  great  sources  of  private  wealth  that  belong  by 
right  to  the  people  are  taken  possession  of  and  run  in  the 
interests  of  the  people,  we  shall  then  witness  a  gradual 
letting  go  of  the  grip  of  this  monster.  Those  industries 
gigantic  in  monopoly  should  be  taken  first,  and  the 
others  as  they  become  so. 

The  way  organized  labour  has  been  of  late  turning  to 
this  government  ownership  idea  and  also  to  political 
action,  argues  well  for  the  strides  we  shall  soon  be  mak- 
ing along  this  line. 

We  must  get  away  from  the  idea  that  we  are  to  be 
governed.  The  people  must  govern.  It  is  not  only  their 
right,  but  their  duty.  If  the  people  do  not  govern,  then 
the  exploitation  of  the  many  by  and  for  the  gain  of  the 
few  will  inevitably  follow  even  as  it  is  going  on  to-day, 
and  as  has  always  happened  when  the  people  them- 
selves have  not  ruled.  Not  only  as  a  common-sense 
principle  of  self-interest,  but  a  sense  of  safety  for  the 
common- wealth,  pure  patriotism  itself,  demands  that 
without  undue  delay  these  great  public  service  utilities 
and  these  great  natural  monopolies  be  owned  and  con- 
trolled in  the  only  way  they  should  be,  for  the  interests 
of  all  the  people  in  common. 

[186] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
The  wealth  that  is  created  by  the  common  needs  of 
the  people  or  by  the  continually  growing  life  of  all  the 
people  should  belong  to  all  the  people.  By  moral  right 
it  belongs  to  them,  and  without  undue  delay  that 
which  belongs  to  the  people  morally  must  be  made  to 
belong  to  them  legally  and  by  custom. 

As  this  movement  increases  among  us,  "commissions"  will  be  ap- 
pointed by  those  interested  in  retaining  their  grip  on  the  properties 
from  which  they  are  deriving  their  annual  millions,  to  go  abroad  to 
"study,"  and  "investigate,"  the  municipal  and  State  ownership 
movement  in  other  countries.  They  will  be  sent  to  those  countries 
where  the  people  are  gaining  so  much  and  are  so  continually  extending 
their  operations  along  these  lines.  They  will  be  so  selected  that  the 
"majority  reports"  will  be  unfavourable  to  the  public  ownership 
methods  as  applied  to  the  United  States.  Men  more  or  less  prominent 
will  also  be  sent  or  will  go  as  individuals  and  will  cable  back,  or  will 
send  back,  for  publicity  purposes,  similar  opinions.  As  time  passes  we 
will  probably  witness  much  along  this  line.  My  suggestion  is,  in  each 
case  make  a  little  investigation  of  the  matter  in  order  to  find  what  con- 
nection the  authors  of  such  reports  and  such  messages  have  with  certain 
interests,  or,  note  the  life  of  the  authors  of  such  reports  and  such 
messages,  and  see  what  influences  have  shaped  or  are  shaping  his 
prevailing  trend  of  thought. 


[187] 


VII 
LABOUR  AND  ITS  UNITING  POWER 

i\  GREAT  people's  movement  is  now  the  only  power 
that  will  save  and  redeem  the  nation.  I  think  there  is  no 
more  significant  factor  in  the  getting  ready  for  this  great 
purpose  than  the  splendid  companies  of  men  that  are 
bringing  themselves  together  in  our  Labour  Unions  and 
Brotherhoods  and  Federations.  And  among  them  is,  it 
must  be  said,  some  of  our  princely  citizenship. 

I  know  that  there  are  various  opinions  held  in  re- 
gard to  the  purposes  and  even  the  good  of  our  labour 
unions.  This  can  be  said,  however,  and  without  any 
fear  of  successful  contradiction,  that  those  who  know 
most  of  them  and  what  they  have  accomplished,  and 
most  of  the  business  and  labour  world  in  general,  realize 
the  splended  results  they  have  already  achieved  and  the 
equally  important  work  that  is  yet  before  them.  Cer- 
tainly upon  their  wise  and  intelligent  growth  and  devel- 
opment depends  much  that  will  make  for  the  highest 
welfare  of  our  coming  institutions. 

I  know  that  there  are  those  who  have  doubted  even 
the  right  of  labour  combining  in  this  way,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  expediency  of  it.  It  is  not  only  right  and  expedient, 
as  I  view  it,  that  labour  should  so  organize,  but  it  is  also 
absolutely  necessary  that  it  do  so,  necessary  not  only 
[1881 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
for  its  own  good  and  welfare,  but  also  for  the  good  and 
the  welfare  of  the  very  nation  itself. 

It  has  been  the  history  of  labour  that  what  it  has 
gained  for  itself  —  and  it  has  gained  much  —  it  has 
gained  entirely  through  its  own  efforts. 

Those  who  are  at  all  acquainted  with  the  conditions 
of  labour  in  times  past,  and  especially  prior  to  the  present 
century,  know  out  of  what  a  condition  of  bondage  it 
has  gradually  lifted  itself.  It  was  at  one  time  in  that 
condition  in  which  it  had  literally  no  rights  that  were 
considered  as  belonging  to  human  beings.  Before  con- 
sidering the  matter  farther  it  is  interesting  to  note  that 
in  the  industrial  world,  the  captains  of  industry  —  the 
employers,  had  this  same  fight  for  liberty  and  for  justice, 
and  they  are  now,  mark  you,  not  such  a  great  ways 
ahead  of  that  larger  class  called  wage- workers. 

Concerning  this  an  eminent  authority  has  said:  "In 
ancient  times,  particularly  in  the  Roman  and  the 
media? val  world,  a  manufacturer  or  merchant,  though 
his  ships  might  cover  the  inland  seas,  though  thousands 
of  men  might  be  doing  his  bidding,  yet  he  had  no  voice 
in  the  government,  was  not  considered  fit  for  a  gentle- 
man and  patrician  to  associate  with,  had  no  voice  in 
making  the  laws  that  should  govern  him,  nor  in  deter- 
mining what  taxes  he  should  pay;  he  was  plundered 
indirectly  by  means  of  taxation,  and  when  this  did  not 
suit  the  purpose  of  dissipated  and  rapacious  officialism, 
he  was  plundered  directly.  To  be  born  a  patrician,  to  be 
a  member  of  the  priesthood,  or  a  successful  military 
chieftain,  entitled  a  man  to  rule.  The  man  who  supplied 
[189] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

the  world  with  necessaries  had  no  social  or  political 
standing,  and  this  continued  to  be  so  throughout  the 
M  iddle  Ages  —  continued  to  be  so  in  most  all  Europe  till 
toward  the  end  of  the  last  century,  and  is  to  a  great  ex- 
tent still  the  case  in  Russia  and  in  the  Turkish  provinces 
of  Europe.  ...  In  England  the  employer  acquired 
his  rights  earlier,  and  has  for  sometime  had  a  voice  in 
the  government.  But  even  in  England  the  much  praised 
Magna  Charta  was  not  for  the  benefit  of  either  employer 
or  workman,  but  simply  of  the  nobility  —  the  idle, 
who,  by  reason  of  the  accident  of  birth,  were  enabled  to 
appropriate  the  labour  of  others." 

Continuing  and  speaking  also  of  the  early  conditions 
of  the  wage-workers,  he  says:  "But,  upon  the  whole, 
the  employer  in  his  struggles  for  justice  is  not  a  century 
in  advance  of  the  class  we  to-day  call  the  wage- workers, 
and  they,  the  labourers,  were  in  ancient  and  later  times 
practically  all  slaves.  To  be  sure,  we  catch  here  and 
there,  in  ancient  literature,  a  phrase  about  the  labourer 
being  worthy  of  his  hire,  put  wnen  we  examine  into  the 
actual  condition  of  the  toiling  masses  we  are  forced  to 
treat  such  utterances  as  the  emanations  ot  fancy,  for 
not  only  was  the  labour  of  the  mass  at  the  aosolute  dis- 
posal of  the  master,  but  practically,  and  in  every-day 
experience,  their  lives  were  also.  True,  there  was  in 
most  countries  a  law  providing  that  the  master  should 
not  kill  his  slave,  but  if  the  master  did  so  he  generally 
went  unwhipped  of  justice.  This  continued  to  be  the 
condition,  with  slight  exceptions,  throughout  all  Europe 
down  to  near  the  beginning  of  this  century.  For  un- 
[1901 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
numbered  centuries  they  were  absolute  slaves,  belonging 
to  individuals;  then  they  belonged,  as  it  were,  to  the  soil, 
and  were  known  as  serfs  and,  in  time,  in  England  they 
may  be  said  to  have  belonged  to  the  county  or  shire. 
.  .  .  It  is  true  there  were  in  some  European  cities 
organizations  of  skilled  workmen,  who  enjoyed  not  only 
their  freedom,  but  some  advantages  that  may  be  said  to 
have  been  ahead  of  their  time;  but,  as  compared  with 
the  great  mass  of  the  common  people,  they  were  so 
insignificant  in  number,  and  their  situation  was  so  ex- 
ceptional that  we  need  not  consider  them  further  than 
to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  they  developed  the 
technical  skill  of  their  members,  and  enforced  sobriety 
and  honourable  conduct,  while  by  means  of  their  meet- 
ings and  discussions  they  became,  in  a  measure,  educat- 
ed, and  thereby  reached  a  much  higher  plane  than  was 
otherwise  possible,  and  they  thus  wielded  a  powerful 
influence  for  good.     .     .     . 

"In  1360,  during  the  reign  of  Edward  III,  it  was 
provided  by  law  that  if  a  labourer  refused  to  work  for 
the  wages  fixed  by  law  or  by  the  justices  of  the  county, 
or  if  he  went  outside  of  the  county  he  was  to  be  brought 
back  by  the  sheriff,  was  to  be  imprisoned,  and  was  to 
have  the  letter  'F'  branded  with  a  hot  iron  upon  his 
forehead  in  token  of  his  falsity.  If  he  sought  by  any 
manner  to  increase  the  rate  of  wages,  he  was  to  be  im- 
prisoned. .  .  .  From  that  time  on,  for  four  cen- 
turies, the  legislation  in  England  is  of  uniform  kind, 
prohibiting  by  imprisonment  all  meetings  of  workmen, 
and  providing  that  the  justice  should  fix  the  wages  to  be 
[191] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

paid  in  their  county;  that  if  any  labourer  refused  to  work 
for  the  wages  fixed  by  the  justices,  he  was  to  be  put  in 
the  stocks;  if  any  labourer  was  found  idle  and  did  not 
apply  himself  to  work,  he  was  to  have  the  letter  'V 
branded  with  a  hot  iron  upon  his  cheek,  and  was  to  be 
sold  into  slavery  for  two  years,  his  children  likewise  to 
be  sold,  and  if  either  he  or  they  ran  away  they  were  to 
have  the  letter '  S '  branded  on  the  cheek  with  a  hot  iron, 
and  were  to  be  sold  into  slavery  for  life,  and  were  to  be 
fed  on  bread  and  water,  and  it  was  provided  by  law 
that  they  were  to  be  made  to  work  by  beating,  by  chain- 
ing, etc.,  and  if  they  ran  away  again  they  were  to  suffer 
death.  Children  that  had  worked  at  husbandry  till  they 
were  twelve  years  old,  were  forbidden  ever  to  attempt 
to  do  anything  else;  other  children  were  required  to 
follow  the  occupation  of  their  parents  or  be  imprisoned. 
It  is  hard  to  conceive  of  a  condition  of  the  labouring  class- 
es that  could  be  much  worse  than  that  of  the  English 
during  these  centuries." 

And  so  far  as  the  length  of  the  work-day  was  con- 
cerned, during  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  in  1562, 
the  following  statute  was  enacted:  "All  artificers  and 
labourers  being  hired  for  wages  by  the  day  or  week  shall 
betwixt  the  midst  of  the  months  of  March  and  Septem- 
ber be  and  continue  at  their  work  at  or  before  five  of 
the  clock  in  the  morning  and  continue  at  work  and  not 
depart  until  betwixt  seven  and  eight  of  the  clock  at 
night,  except  it  be  in  the  time  of  breakfast,  dinner,  or 
drinking;  and  all  such  artificers  and  labourers  between 
the  midst  of  September  and  the  midst  of  March  shall 
[192] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

be  and  continue  at  their  work  from  the  spring  of  the 
day  in  the  morning  until  the  night  of  the  same  day,  ex- 
cept in  the  time  of  breakfast  and  dinner. " 

So  much  then  for  the  early  conditions  of  both  employer 
and  wage-worker.  We  come  on  down  then  to  our  own 
time.  As  the  employer  class  became  fully  emancipated 
they  began  to  take  matters  into  their  own  hands,  and 
in  their  relations  with  those  who  worked  for  them  and 
who  were  the  absolutely  essential  factor  in  their  business 
and  who  helped  make  their  profits,  they  had  the  entire 
say.  They  paid  what  wages  they  chose.  They  laid  down 
the  conditions  under  which  those  working  for  them  did 
their  work.  The  labourer  had  practically  nothing  to  say 
regarding  anything.  The  employers  were  organizing 
among  themselves;  they  were  getting  stronger,  and  as 
a  rule,  it  can  be  truthfully  said,  more  dictatorial.  The 
wage-workers  then  began  to  take  heed.  They  began  to 
see  what  was  to  be  gained  through  organization,  through 
co-operation.  They  realized  that  they  had  grievances  of 
various  types,  that  they  were  not  getting  as  a  rule  a 
fair  share  in  the  profits  of  the  enterprise  in  which  they 
were  as  necessary  a  factor  as  the  element  of  capital 
and  its  management.  They  also  realized  that  as  in- 
dividuals they  had  absolutely  no  way  of  making  any 
of  their  wants  or  grievances  known,  and  that  for  in- 
dividuals to  act  in  these  matters  was  not  only  futile 
but  unsafe  for  the  one  or  ones  so  acting.  Then  organiza- 
tion and  the  uniting  of  the  wage-workers  in  the  form  of 
the  labour  union  came  into  being. 

In  reply  to  the  question,  "  What  originally  were  the 
[  193  ] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

conditions  and  facts  which  seemed  to  make  necessary 
the  combinations  of  workmen  called  '  labour  unions,' 
and  which  justify  their  present  existence?"  an  officer 
of  one  of  our  larger  labour  organizations  gave  the  follow- 
ing reply :  "  To  describe  accurately  such  conditions  and 
facts  would  require  many  volumes  dealing  with  social 
conditions,  social  injustice,  special  privilege,  all  over  the 
world.  The  specific  fact  which  made  labour  unions  neces- 
ary  was  this :  Wealth  was  produced  as  a  result  of  a  combi- 
nation of  labour  and  of  intelligent  direction.  The  direc- 
tion, otherwise  the  employer,  was  in  absolute  control,  fix- 
ed wages,  treated  the  employee  as  he  saw  fit.  The  employ- 
ers were  also  united  in  their  social  relationships,  their 
mutual  interests  and  in  other  ways.  The  employees,  the 
workers,  were  isolated ;  they  had  no  union,  working  from 
dawn  till  dark  made  social  intercourse  impossible.  The 
unions  of  workers  were  formed  for  the  same  reason  that 
the  union  of  States  in  this  country  was  formed  —  namely, 
to  give  to  the  individuals  forming  the  union  the  greater 
strength  that  comes  from  united  action,  to  give  them 
the  dignity  that  comes  with  escape  from  a  servile  con- 
dition, to  give  them  the  power  enabling  them  to  obtain 
for  themselves  fair  wages,  involving  comfort  and  educa- 
tion for  their  families  and  leisure  for  mental  improve- 
ment for  themselves. " 

Said  the  President  of  the  American  Federation  of 
Labour  in  a  recent  address  before  the  New  York  Board 
of  Trade  and  Transportation :  "  The  very  concentration 
of  wealth  and  its  possession  is  potent  organization,  and 
unless  the  wage-earners,  the  workers,  combined  their 

[19*] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
efforts  in  unions  of  labour,  their  condition  to-day  would 
be  such  as  to  shock  the  mind  even  in  contemplation. 
That  any  hope  for  material  improvement,  moral  ad- 
vancement, or  higher  ethical  consideration  is  possible 
without  the  organizations  of  labour,  few  now  seriously 
believe. " 

This  is  quite  in  keeping  with  an  utterance  of  former 
Governor  Washburn,  of  Massachusetts,  when  he  spoke 
as  follows:  "The  fact  that  there  is  unrest  and  dissatis- 
faction when  man  is  confined  to  unremitting  toil  is  one 
of  the  brightest  and  most  healthy  omens  of  the  times. 
It  is  an  indication  that  his  better  nature  is  struggling 
for  emancipation ;  it  is  a  hopeful  sign  of  finer  and  nobler 
manhood  in  the  future.  Such  efforts  for  improvement 
should  never  be  discouraged,  but  always  encouraged. " 

So  much  then  for  the  right,  the  expediency,  and  the 
necessity  of  the  wage-worker  organizing  and  uniting 
for  protection  and  for  mutual  self-help. 

The  labour  unions  have  committed  errors  of  course, 
they  are  committing  them  to-day,  and  plenty  of  them. 
Counts  of  many  various  types  can  be  made  against 
them.  Enemies  of  or  those  unfriendly  to  union  labour 
could,  I  dare  say,  compile  very  long  lists  of  errors  and  ex- 
cesses of  various  kinds.  Friends  of  and  those  sympathetic 
to  union  labour  could  compile  also  a  similar  list.  But 
this  is  only  natural,  for  in  the  early  and  formative  days 
of  any  movement  this  is  practically  always  true;  there 
is  indeed  scarcely  an  exception.  No  movement  or 
system,  especially  one  involving  such  complex  and  such 
difficult  matters  to  deal  with  and  men  in  such  various 
[195] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

stages  of  development,  can  start  in  a  fully  perfected 
form,  nor  is  it  to  be  expected.  Once  it  was  urged  in 
England  that  men  should  not  be  given  their  political 
freedom  until  they  were  fully  prepared  to  use  it  rightly, 
and  until  there  was  no  danger  of  their  ever  abusing  it. 
This  course  seemed  plausible  and  reasonable  to  those 
advocating  it;  to  it  Lord  Macaulay  replied,  "  If  men  are 
to  wait  for  freedom  until  they  have  become  good  and 
wise  in  slavery,  they  will  wait  forever. " 

In  a  similar  vein  and  speaking  directly  of  organized 
labour,  the  Springfield  Republican  has  said:  "Viewed 
philosophically,  it  is  inevitable  that  a  riot  of  inexperience 
and  inefficiency  should  characterize  the  early  stages  of 
labour's  organization.  No  state  of  society  is  ever  inaugu- 
rated with  people  already  perfected  for  its  coming.  .  .  . 
Republican  institutions  were  not  deferred  on  earth  until  a 
people  were  found  entirely  capable  of  running  perfect  re- 
publics. Democracy  did  not  await  the  advent  of  a  popula- 
tion already  fully  trained  in  the  arts  of  self-government. 
All  these  things  come,  and  the  people  most  concerned 
have  to  develop  up  to  them.  Such  is  the  lesson  of  history- 
Labour-unionism  came  also,  and,  in  the  same  way,  its 
adherents  have  had  to  discipline  themselves  by  experi- 
ence in  the  best  methods  of  organization  and  conserva- 
tive management.  On  the  whole,  taking  into  considera- 
tion the  enormous  increase  of  unionism,  it  is  no  more 
than  fair  to  say  that  it  is  constantly  gaining  in  equili- 
brium and  sanity." 

The  unions  and   their  leaders   have  been   learning 
rapidly  in  these  matters.  Generally  speaking,  the  older 
[196] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

the  union  the  more  conservative  and  quiet  and  at  the 
same  time  firm  and  effective  is  it  in  its  methods  and  its 
dealings.  In  other  countries,  in  England  for  example, 
where  the  unions  are  a  great  deal  older,  they  have  even 
long  ago  worked  through  and  out  of  the  rash  and  tem- 
pestuous stages,  the  stages  where  so  many  counts  could 
be  made  against  them,  and  have  reached  the  position 
that  the  unions  in  America  have  been  gradually  working 
their  way  towards.  Here,  as  there,  it  has  been  a  long, 
hard  road  to  travel,  it  has  meant  fight  and  defeat,  and 
at  times  apparent  rout  along  with  the  battles  won,  the 
experience  gained,  the  advancement  made  —  the  pres- 
ent priceless  possession.  It  has  meant  brave  sufferings 
many  times  not  only  on  the  part  of  the  wage-workers, 
but  also  on  the  part  of  their  families.  It  has  meant  at 
times,  the  facing  of  great  uncertainty. 

I  think  it  should  be  said  that  from  the  managers  of 
capital,  labour  has  learned  some  of  its  worse  features 
and  excesses.  I  think  it  can  be  truthfully  said  that  with 
all  the  excesses  and  violations  of  law  on  the  part  of  union 
labour  in  times  passed  it  has  never,  taking  it  all  in  all, 
equalled  the  amount  of  disregard  for  and  violation  of 
law  that  organized  capital  has  been  guilty  of.  It  has  been 
more  open  and  awkward  in  its  methods,  perhaps,  while 
organized  capital  in  addition  to  being  in  many  cases  also 
glaringly  open,  has  worked  in  a  subtile  and  silent  way 
under  cover.  The  latter  is  more  skilled,  it  may  be  said, 
and  hence  more  apt  in  these  matters. 

But  out  of  this  long  and  at  times  apparently  clumsy 
struggle,  union  labour  in  this  country  is  also  attaining  a 
[197] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

position  where  it  is  exerting  a  great  and  powerful  good, 
not  only  for  its  own  and  for  the  public  welfare,  but  also 
for  organized  capital,  if  the  latter  is  wise  enough  to 
openly  and  freely  recognize  its  power  and  its  purposes. 

In  connection  with  the  final  settlement  of  the  great 
strike  in  the  anthracite  fields  some  time  ago,  there  were 
among  others  two  utterances  to  me  very  significant  and 
worthy  of  a  wide  reproduction.  Judge  Gray,  chairman 
of  the  Arbitration  Commission,  said :  "  Unless  my  judg- 
ment is  at  fault  and  my  faith  unfounded,  the  labour 
unions  will  soon  have  passed  through  their  period  of 
trial  and  tribulation  and  will  emerge  on  a  bright  and 
sunlit  plain,  where  true  American  character,  the  fruit  of 
American  liberty,  will  illustrate  the  worth  of  our  in- 
stitutions. Purging  themselves  of  every  anti-social  and 
unworthy  element,  recognizing  in  others  the  rights  they 
claim  for  themselves,  with  malice  towards  none  and 
charity  towards  all,  subordinate  to  law,  with  a  full  sense 
of  their  appeal  to  the  public  opinion  of  the  country,  as 
our  fathers  made  their  appeal,  they  will  be  unheld  in 
the  time  to  come  by  employers,  as  powerful  coadjusters, 
in  the  maintenance  of  American  ideals  of  free  govern- 
ment  among   men." 

Much  of  the  energy  of  labour  unions  up  to  the  present 
time  has  been  directed  towards  the  securing  of  a  larger 
wage  and  of  a  shorter  workday,  and  in  some  cases 
towards  both.  It  is  quite  natural  that  at  first  this  should 
be  true.  But  with  this  gained  to  a  greater  or  less  extent, 
there  comes  a  time  and  it  has  now  come,  when  it  must 
push  out  into  a  larger  and  more  general  field.  These 
[198] 


In  the  Fire  of  tlie  Heart 

gained,  and  with  more  time  for  council  and  intercourse, 
and  with  a  greater  recognition  of  its  power  and  its  stand- 
ing, it  is  more  able  now  to  move  upon  a  broader  and 
still  more  telling  plain.  The  union  and  the  federation  has 
also  been  an  excellent  means  of  training  in  reason  as 
against  crankery,  in  moderation  as  against  rashness 
and  hot-headness,  in  short  for  a  broader  and  more  sub- 
stantial and  effective  citizenship.  A  very  discriminating 
writer,  in  speaking  along  this  line,  has  said:  "If  we 
omit  certain  unions  in  the  more  corrupt  cities,  where 
the  leaders  learn  bad  habits  by  imitation,  and  are  too 
frequently  bought  and  sold,  there  is  at  the  present  mo- 
ment in  this  country  no  more  powerful  influence  to 
train  men  for  citizenship  than  the  influences  at  work 
in  the  best  and  strongest  labour  organizations.  This  is 
true  of  the  Federation ;  it  is  true  of  separate  unions  like 
the  printers,  trainmen,  iron-moulders ;  many  of  the 
longshoremen,    and    cigar-makers. 

"But  especially  do  these  older  and  stronger  unions 
learn  to  check  dangerous  and  revolutionary  opinions. 
.  .  .  As  the  trade  union  strengthens,  its  influence 
against  turbulent  and  revolutionary  projects  steadily 
increases.  The  only  agency  that  will  prevent  the  spread 
of  this  conservatism  is  the  fatuous  obstinacy  which 
insists  upon  defeating  completer  labour  organization."* 

The  time  has  come  it  seems  to  me  when  organized  and 

federated  labour  must  move,  and  move  in  a  very  effective 

and  telling  way  along  the  lines  of  political  action.  Not 

that  the  union  or  the  federation  as  such,  as  an  organiza- 

*  John  Graham  Brooks  in  "  The  Social  Unrest  "  Chap.  xii. 

[199] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

tion,  must  so  act,  for  this  all  along  it  has  steadily  avoided 
and  undoubtedly  most  wisely.  There  would  be  pitfalls 
innumerable  for  it,  did  it  adopt  or  attempt  to  adopt 
such  a  course.  Nor  would  anyone  of  judgment  advo- 
cate the  membership  of  the  union  or  federation  as  such 
affiliating  with  any  par  icular  party.  To  be  inde- 
pendent in  party  action,  here  as  in  the  rest  of  our 
citizenship  should  be,  as  it  is  getting  more  and  more 
to  be,  the  great  fact;  then  for  organized  labour  to  work 
along  the  lines  of  educating  its  membership  in  the  lines 
of  policy  and  legislation  that  gives  or  that  keeps  for  the 
great  common  people,  of  which  the  wage-worker  is 
such  a  large  and  powerful  factor,  larger  rights  and 
fairer  opportunities  and  more  just  conditions,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  privileged  classes  by  whom  the 
chief  portion  of  the  machinery  of  government  is  now 
dominated  and  controlled,  and  in  whose  interests  the 
larger  share  of  legislation  is  now  enacted.  And  so  far 
as  the  immediate  demands  and  the  welfare  of  organized 
labour  is  concerned,  it  seems  to  me  that  the  time  has  now 
come  when  this  is  the  effective  and  the  telling  method  of 
work,  also  the  orderly  and  the  peaceable,  hence,  the 
most    satisfactory. 

It  is  undoubtedly  in  the  matter  of  strikes  and  the 
almost  innumerable  things  that  accompany  them  that 
union  labour  has  suffered  most  in  its  reputation,  and  to  a 
greater  or  less  extent  in  its  standing.  Whether  this  part 
of  its  life  could  have  been  lived  better  or  not  is  of  no  im- 
portance so  far  as  the  present  consideration  is  concerned. 
The  one  concern  at  present  is  —  the  lessons  that  are 
[  200  ] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

to  be  learned  from  the  past  use  of  this  weapon.  Un- 
doubtedly there  are  many  and  very  important  lessons 
to  be  learned;  undoubtedly  many  have  been  learned. 
That  strikes  have  been  too  frequently  called,  and 
especially  the  sympathetic  strike,  that  others  have  been 
called  rashly  and  without  sufficient  preparation,  and 
without  a  sufficient  consideration  of  the  chances  of 
success  beforehand,  that  others  have  been  too  frequently 
called  under  a  poor  or  ineffective,  or  self-seeking  leader- 
ship, is  undoubtedly  true.  The  abler  leaders  and  the 
better  and  more  intelligent  members  have  now  come  to 
the  position  where  they  recognize  that  the  strike  and  its 
attendant  circumstances  is  to  be  considered  only  as  a 
weapon  of  last  resort.  The  disposition,  reached  partly 
through  very  great  losses,  is  now  to  conciliate,  to  adjust 
grievances  and  differences  if  any  possible  way  can  be 
found  without  a  resort  to  the  strike.  The  history  of 
strikes,  those  lost  as  well  as  those  won,  has  brought 
home  to  the  intelligent  and  capable  and  unself-centred 
leader  and  union  member  some  very  clear-cut  facts 
such  as  the  following:  that  a  strike  should  not  be  al- 
lowed to  be  called  by  a  walking-delegate,  or  by  any 
power  outside  of  a  full  and  complete  vote  of  the  union ; 
that  the  union  should  move  slowly  and  with  every 
possible  degree  of  fairness ;  that  it  should  be  thoroughly 
organized  and  ready  for  the  strike;  that  it  be  under  the 
direction  of  a  thoroughly  able  and  honest  and  proven 
leader;  that  it  be  sure  that  its  demands  or  its  grievances 
are  thoroughly  just  and  sufficiently  important  to  pay 
this  price  for  their  attainment  or  their  adjustment; 
[201] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

that  it  has  come  to  pass  that  public  opinion  is  the  court 
or  the  power  that  finally  decides  whether  the  strike 
be  successful  or  whether  it  end  in  failure;  therefore, 
in  addition  to  the  necessity  that  the  demands  be  thorough- 
ly just  ones,  that  there  be  no  violence  or  rioting. 
True,  owners  and  managers  of  capital  —  as  well  as 
sympathizers  —  have  provoked  or  have  deliberately 
planned  violence  and  rioting,  as  they  probably  will 
in  other  cases  yet  to  come,  but  by  forbearance  and 
patience  the  public  can  in  practically  all  cases  eventually 
be  shown  its  source,  and  it  will  render  its  verdict  ac- 
cordingly. The  very  fact  that  this  method  has  some- 
times been  deliberately  resorted  to,  to  help  weaken  or 
break  a  strike,  is  itself  a  powerful  and  quiet  commentary 
upon  the  influence  and  the  power  of  public  opinion  as 
the  determining  factor  in  a  strike. 

How  keen  the  really  able  labour  leader  is  in  regard 
to  the  importance  of  no  violence  emanating  from  the 
organization  in  time  of  strike  is  shown  partly  by  the 
following  words  of  John  Mitchell,  spoken  in  connection 
with  the  anthracite  coal  strike,  and  not  for  its  effect  upon 
the  public  but  in  earnest  council  to  the  miners :  "  If  you 
want  to  spoil  your  own  cause  and  lose  every  sacrifice 
you  have  made  for  yourself  and  your  families,  give  way 
to  your  temper  and  commit  some  violence.  Just  a  few 
outbreaks  like  this  and  the  public  good-will,  to  which 
we  must  look  in  last  resort,  will  fail  us  and  we  shall  de- 
serve to  lose  it. "  A  leader  of  the  keen  insight  of  John 
Mitchell,  understands  all  too  thoroughly  what  the  ele- 
ment of  violence,  emanating  from  the  organization  at 
[202] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

a  critical  period  of  the  strike,  would  mean  in  its  effect 
upon  public  opinion.  This,  however,  is  not  exceptional 
council,  but  it  has  grown  to  be  that  which  is  common 
on  the  part  of  the  able,  experienced,  and  efficient  labour 
leaders. 

The  very  large  number  of  strikes  that  are  prevented 
through  the  influence  and  the  clearer  councils  of  the 
abler  leader  and  his  subordinates,  is  probably  not 
realized  by  the  one  not  intimately  acquainted  with 
organized  labour.  The  following  letter  by  the  very  able 
general  secretary  of  the  Garment  Worker's  Union, 
Henry  White,  is  also  indicative  of  much  that  is  going 
on  at  present: 

"  Mr.  —  foreman  of  —  informs  me  that  your  only 
reason  for  calling  out  the  men  was  that  he  refused 
to  continue  in  his  employ  two  men  laid  off  for  incom- 
petent work,  and  that  even  your  business  agent  ad- 
mitted that  the  work  of  the  men  was  imperfect.  If 
such  is  the  case,  your  action  in  withdrawing  the  men 
was  not  justified.  This  office,  as  well  as  the  National 
Union,  is  opposed  to  forcing  upon  an  employer  men 
whose  work  is  not  suitable.  It  is  just  that  sort  of  thing 
that  creates  needless  opposition  to  the  union,  and  causes 
no  end  of  trouble.  Your  union  is  the  only  one  that  would 
make  such  a  demand.  Where  members  are  made  to 
believe  that  they  cannot  be  discharged,  no  matter  what 
they  do,  they  become  careless,  and  the  poor  workman 
falls  back  upon  the  protection  of  the  union.  The  em- 
ployer has  got  to  sell  the  goods,  and  he  assumes  the  risk, 
consequently  he  alone  can  be  the  judge  as  to  the  quality 
[203] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
of  work.  As  long  as  he  pays  the  union  scale  and  does  not 
discriminate  against  active  members,  that  is  all  you  can 
expect  of  him. 

"  Now  I  trust  you  will  not  place  us  in  a  position  where 
the  General  Executive  Board  will  have  to  decide  against 
you." 

I  know  there  are  employers  who  have  become  very 
bitter  against  organized  labour.  I  know  also  that  some, 
at  times  have  had  to  meet  some  very  exasperating 
things  from  the  unions.  This  I  think  is  owing  in  great 
part  to  two  causes :  the  feeling  of  power  that  has  come 
to  labour  since  the  unions  have  become  a  force  that  must 
be  reckoned  with;  and  again  on  account  of  the  sort  of 
transitional  period  through  which  both  employer  and 
worker  has  been  passing,  where  we  have  reached  the 
end  of  the  period  where  the  employer  has  had  practically 
everything  to  say  in  connection  with  the  works  and  the 
conditions  of  labour,  and  where  he  is  now  loath  to  admit 
that  the  portion  of  his  establishment,  the  portion  as 
necessary  as  his  capital,  his  management,  and  his  ma- 
chinery —  the  workmen  —  can  have  anything  to  say 
regarding  any  feature  of  his  works.  But  the  day  has 
come  when  the  wise  owner  or  manager  is  he  who  openly 
and  even  cheerfully  recognizes  this.  There  are  those 
who  have  taken  this  view  of  the  matter,  have  acted 
accordingly,  and  are  even  now  glad  that  this  changed 
condition  has  come  about.  They  are  managing  in  such 
a  way  that  great  good  is  resulting  to  them  as  well  as  to 
their  workmen. 

The  day  of  "  my  business  "  has  passed ;  the  day  of  "  our 
[204] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

business"  has  arrived.  The  new  industrial  era  that  we 
are  now  entering  upon  is  the  one  in  which  there  shall 
be  more  consultation  and  more  friendly  co-operation 
between  employer  and  employee;  and  where  if  this 
method  is  entered  upon  freely  and  with  a  fuller  and 
more  sympathetic  recognition  of  each  other's  rights, 
and  of  the  amenities  due  from  each  to  the  other,  very 
great  mutual  gains  will  be  made. 

The  one  important  factor  that  must  now  be  looked 
for  by  owners  of  large  enterprises  and  by  companies, 
is  men  as  managers  who  are  keen  enough  to  recognize 
the  advent  of  this  new  era,  and  who  are  large  enough  to 
meet  and  to  deal  with  labour  upon  this  new  basis.  It  is 
after  all  but  an  indication  of  the  possession  of  a  good 
degree  of  modem  business  ability.  Speaking  along  this 
line  a  very  able  Eastern  railroad  president  said  some 
time  ago :  "  To  assume  that  we  have  got  to  go  on  spas- 
modically fighting  the  unions,  is  tactless  and  unintelli- 
gent. The  truth  is  that  the  kind  of  man  who  is  not  strong 
enough  to  work  with  organized  labour  has  not  the  quali- 
fication for  his  position.  It  is  silly  for  powerful  corpora- 
tions to  say, '  We  will  deal  with  the  individuals,  not  with 
representatives  of  unions.'  Organization  of  labour  has 
got  to  be  recognized  as  such,  and  dealt  with  as  such, 
and  the  problem  now  is  to  get  men  with  the  qualities 
and  capacities  to  do  this." 

Mr.  Darrow,  one  of  the  miners'  counsel,  in  speaking 

before  the  anthracite  commission,  spoke  possibly  more 

strongly  though  not  more  truly  in  the   following.    Mr. 

Henry  D.  Lloyd,  also  counsel,  had  just  pointed  out  the 

[  205] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

fact  that  the  commission  could  hope  to  bring  no  peace 
to  the  anthracite  fields  that  could  be  in  any  way  per- 
manent unless  it  provided  for  agreements  with  the  union. 
Mr.  Darrow,  speaking  in  regard  to  the  recognition  of 
the  union,  said :  "  You  can  do  just  as  you  please  about 
recognizing  the  union.  If  you  do  not  recognize  it,  it  is 
because  you  are  blind  and  you  want  to  bump  up  against 
it  some  more;  that  is  all.  It  is  here.  It  is  here  to  stay,  and 
the  burden  is  on  you  and  not  upon  us.  There  is  neither 
the  power  nor  the  disposition  in  this  court,  I  take  it,  to 
destroy  the  union.  It  would  not  accomplish  it  if  it 
could,  and  it  certainly  could  not  if  it  would.  And  if  these 
wise  business  men,  with  the  combined  wisdom  of  busi- 
ness gentlemen  and  the  agents  of  the  Almighty,  cannot 
see  the  union,  they  had  better  blunder  along  still  a  few 
more  years,  and  possibly  after  a  while  they  will  know  it 
is  here  and  recognize  it  themselves." 

I  know  there  is  still  a  great  deal  of  unsettled  opinion 
regarding  strikes  and  lockouts,  regarding  arbitration, 
and  especially  compulsory  arbitration.  All  who  are 
familiar  with  it,  however,  are  agreed  that  there  is  one 
form  of  arbitration  that  is  unique  in  that  it  leads  all 
other  forms.  It  is  what  has  come  to  be  known  as  the 
"  joint  agreement."  It  might  be  more  accurately  spoken 
of  as  a  form  of  conciliation  than  as  a  form  of  arbitra- 
tion; or  still  more  accurately,  perhaps,  as  a  form  of 
working  agreement  between  employer  and  employed. 
Its  basis  is,  that  once  so  often,  according  to  agreement, 
accredited  representatives  of  both  employer  and  work- 
men meet  in  a  joint  session  to  consider,  to  discuss,  and 
[206] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

to  draw  up  a  set  of  agreements  that  shall  be  the  basis 
of  the  year's  or  the  period's  work.  The  very  fact  that 
labor  is  organized  and  is  capable  of  sending  responsible 
representatives  to  such  a  meeting  makes  the  "joint 
agreement "  possible.  Otherwise  it  would  not  be  possible. 
The  "joint  agreement"  is  pre-eminently  the  highest 
type  of  arbitration,  for  it  is  arbitration  from  within. 
The  features  that  mark  its  high  value  are  many.  First 
are  its  educational  features,  in  that  it  makes  both  em- 
ployer and  employed  acquainted  with  each  other's  points 
of  view,  with  each  other's  needs  as  well  as  desires;  it 
leads  to  a  better  understanding  between  employer  and 
workmen,  probably  the  greatest  need  in  our  modern  in- 
dustrial world.  And  if  entered  into  heartily  it  has  the 
tendency  of  creating  an  active  sympathy  between  the 
two.  This  in  itself  will  in  time  lead  to  a  continually 
increasing  mutual  respect  and  mutual  helpfulness. 
Again,  agreements  thus  voluntarily  made  are  far  more 
apt  to  be  kept,  and  more  easily  and  conscientiously 
than  in  case  of  conditions  imposed  from  without,  and 
which  in  almost  every  case  are  bound  to  contain  some 
features  distasteful  and  onerous  to  one  party  or  the 
other.  Again,  it  is  simply  a  recognition  of  a  purely  com- 
mon-sense and  practical  method  that  is  recognized  and 
used  in  practically  every  other  avenue  in  the  business 
world.  Finally,  I  think  it  can  be  said,  that  there  can  be 
no  effective  relations  and  no  lasting  peace  between 
employer  and  workmen  until  the  agreement  is  recogniz- 
ed as  the  common-sense  and  fair  method  of  procedure, 
and  is  entered  into  in  a  whole-souled  manner  and  with 
[207] 


In  the  Fire   of  the  Heart 

the  purpose  and  intention  on  the  part  of  both  inter- 
ested parties  of  living  fully  up  to  the  agreement. 

The  "  joint  agreement "  is  not  a  new  method  of  con- 
ciliation or  a  new  method  of  procedure  as  between 
employer  and  employed,  but  in  some  fields  it  has  been 
used  for  many  years,  and  in  most  all  cases  with  thorough- 
ly satisfactory  results.  It  can  therefore  be  spoken  of 
from  the  standpoint  of  its  actual  achivements.  It  is  of 
later  years,  however,  that  it  has  been  coming  into  a 
more  general  and  into  a  continually  increasing  use. 
This  fact  is  undoubtedly  an  evidence  of  its  effectiveness 
and  value. 

There  is  so  much  testimony  to  be  had  in  regard  to  its 
effective  and  satisfactory  results  that  it  would  be  in- 
teresting to  consider  much  of  it  did  space  permit.  The 
manager  of  one  of  the  largest  stove  manufactories  in 
the  country  has  said  of  the  agreement :  "  We  have  tried 
it  a  dozen  years  and  it  has  settled  all  questions  on  this 
subject  for  us.  Its  best  trait  is  that,  as  it  works,  it  trains 
the  men  to  see  the  limits  within  which  they  can  get 
advantages.  It  makes  the  men  more  conservative  and  it 
makes  us  more  considerate." 

Mr.  John  Graham  Brooks,  in  "The  Social  Unrest"  has 
dealt  with  the  joint  agreement  in  a  very  effective  way. 
At  one  place  he  says :  "  To  keep  agreements  voluntarily, 
is  a  much  higher  discipline  than  to  do  it  under  force. 
For  many  years  unions  have  actually  kept  contracts 
when  employers  have  genuinely  and  heartily  co-operated 
with  the  joint  agreement. 

"There  is  no  such  convincing  proof  of  this  as  the 
[208] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

fifteen  years'  trial  between  masters  and  men  in  the 
Boston  Building  Trades.  The  agent  of  the  employers, 
W.  H.  Sayward,  who  brought  about  this  agreement, 
conducting  it  with  growing  success  for  eighteen  years, 
allows  me  to  say  that  under  it  scores  of  strikes  have 
been  prevented,  millions  of  money  saved,  and  the  most 
delicate  questions,  like  the  limitation  of  output 
and  apprentices,  the  use  of  the  boycott,  the  conflicts 
between  different  unions,  and  the  sympathetic  strike, 
are  now  so  far  understood  as  a  result  of  this  education 
that  they  are  no  longer  feared." 

Mr.  Sayward's  testimony,  in  part,  is  as  follows :  "  My 
experience  has  convinced  me  that  labour  thoroughly 
organized  and  honestly  recognized  is  even  more  im- 
portant for  the  employer  than  for  the  workmen.  It  makes 
possible  a  working  method  between  the  two  parties 
which  removes  one  by  one  the  most  dangerous  elements 
of  conflict  and  misunderstanding."  Speaking  farther, 
Mr.  Sayward  said:  "that  either  for  the  building  trades 
or  other  lines  of  work,  these  intricate  and  involved 
matters  will  not  take  care  of  themselves;  they  cannot 
safely  be  intrusted  to  one  of  the  interested  parties  alone : 
both  parties  must  have  equal  concern,  must  act  jointly, 
not  only  in  their  own  interests,  but,  in  effect,  in  the  inter- 
ests of  the  community." 

If  at  anytime  differences  do  arise  under  the  joint 
agreement,  or  if  they  arise  when  it  is  not  in  use  and 
trouble  seems  iminent,  then  conciliation  or  voluntary 
arbitration  is  the  next  sensible  step.  It  is  safe  to  say  that 
there  is  scarcely  a  case  where  the  strike  or  the  lockout 
[209] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

need  be  resorted  to  if  there  is  an  eminent  spirit  of  fairness 
on  both  sides.  Conciliation  and  fairness.  A  looking  at 
the  matter  from  the  standpoint  of  the  other,  a  pocketing 
of  pride  to  gain  something  larger  and  fairer  and  more 
satisfactory  in  the  end.  A  getting  away  from  pure  fool 
obstinacy  and  allowing  a  spirit  of  openness  and  fairness 
to  assert  itself  and  lead  to  what  will  prove  to  be  a  wiser 
course  and  a  better  end.  The  workmen  to  be  fair  and 
to  be  sure  they  are  making  no  unjust  demands,  not 
hasty  but  considerate  of  the  probable  difficulties  that 
lie  in  the  employer's  way.  Employer  to  pass  rapidly 
beyond  the  foolish  and  inane  period  where  "this  is 
my  business  and  I  will  conduct  it  absolutely  to  suit 
myself, "  "  I  will  not  be  dictated  to  " ;  "  there  is  nothing 
to  arbitrate. "  The  public  is  pretty  well  tired  now  of 
"  there  is  nothing  to  arbitrate,"  and  popular  disapproval 
will  soon  call  a  halt  upon  this  puerile  obstinancy  unless 
owner  or  manager  finds  sense  enough  to  abandon  it 
himself.  All  that  is  needed  to  prevent  precipitated  labour 
troubles  —  strikes  and  lockouts  —  is  for  the  men  in 
overalls  and  the  owners  or  managers  of  industry  to 
grow  sufficiently  large  as  to  enable  them  to  throw  away 
their  prejudices  and  meet  as  they  meet  in  other  things, 
on  the  common-sense  platform  of  fraternity  and  human- 
ity. Each  must  manifest  the  spirit  of  open  fairness,  and 
the  more  fully  this  is  done  the  more  smoothly  and 
pleasantly  and  satisfactorily  will  the  negotiations  run. 
President  John  Mitchell  has  given  this  bit  of  testimony : 
"  I  have  never  seen  in  my  experience  a  strike  that  could 
not  have  been  averted  if  the  employers  and  the  men  who 
[210] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
work  had  met  in  conference  before  the  strike  was  started. 

"  I  have  said  on  many  occasions  that  I  was  opposed 
to  strikes,  opposed  to  lockouts,  opposed  to  industrial 
turmoil;  that  I  favoured  peace,  but  always  with  the 
qualification  that  it  must  be  an  honourable  peace.  There 
will  never  be  peace  between  the  men  who  work  and 
those  who  employ  men  to  work  unless  that  peace  guar- 
antees to  each  side  that  which  is  its  proper  due. " 

Herman  Justi,  Commissioner,  Illinois  Coal  Operators' 
Association,  has  said:  "With  scarcely  an  exception, 
every  strike  that  has  taken  place  in  our  time,  even  where 
there  has  been  bloodshed  and  destruction  of  property, 
has  finally  been  settled  in  friendly  council. " 

Speaking  then  of  the  plan  of  the  Coal  Operators'  Asso- 
ciation in  their  method  of  joint  agreements  with  their 
men  which  have  been  in  operation  for  a  great  many  years, 
Mr.  Justi  says :  "  Our  plan  is  to  prevent  these  senseless 
and  costly  strikes,  and  the  many  differences  and  disputes 
arising  between  master  and  men  which  seem  to  place 
them  in  the  attitude  of  enemies  to  each  other,  are  settled 
in  the  same  manner  in  which  the  most  destructive 
strikes  are  finally  settled,  viz:  by  meeting  in  friendly 
council,  where  we  try  self-control  long  enough  to  enable 
us  to  say:  'Come,  let  us  reason  together.'  This  is, 
practically,  all  there  is  of  the  plan  pursued  in  the  coal 
mining  industry  of  Illinois,  and  of  this  plan  to  prevent 
strikes  and  to  promote  harmony  and  good  feeling  it  can 
be  said,  at  least,  that  it  is  the  fairest  thus  far  offered. " 

But  what  a  commentary  upon  the  experience  of  the 
past  twenty  or  twenty-five  years  to  know  that  finally 
[211] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

practically  all  strikes  are  settled  by  the  very  means  that 
could  have  prevented  their  ever  occurring  had  more 
real  ability  or,  to  speak  more  plainly,  more  plain  ordi- 
nary common-sense  prevailed  on  one  side  or  the  other, 
or  on  both. 

As  soon  as  it  becomes  apparent  that  employer  and 
workmen  are  unable  to  adjust  their  differences  through 
conciliation  or  voluntary  arbitration,  then  by  the  ordi- 
nary course,  the  strike  on  the  part  of  the  one,  or  the  lock- 
out on  the  part  of  the  other,  is  resorted  to.  What  the 
results  sometimes  are,  when  this  method  assumes  con- 
trol, all  are  thoroughly  conversant  with.  Upon  the  public 
the  chief  burden  is  then  thrown.  It  has  always  seemed  to 
me  that  right  at  this  point  it  is  the  privilege  and  the  duty 
of  the  public  to  have  its  say.  I  know  that  many  labour 
men,  and  among  them  some  eminent  labour  leaders, 
hold  a  different  view.  To  deprive  labour  of  the  power  to 
strike  they  believe,  and  honestly,  would  be  to  take  from  it 
one  of  its  most  effective  weapons.  I  would  not  deprive 
labour  of  its  power  to  strike;  and  the  more  thoroughly 
and  closely  labour  is  organized  the  greater  does  this 
ability  become.  There  is  probably  no  one  who  believes 
more  thoroughly  in  the  good  that  is  to  result  both  to 
worker  and  employer,  as  well  as  to  the  public  at  large, 
from  a  continually  growing  and  developing  organiza- 
tion of  labour.  But  the  larger  good  must  always  be  kept 
in  mind,  and  when  the  calling  of  a  strike  or  the  instituting 
of  a  lockout  becomes  the  supreme  necessity,  then  the 
principle  of  compulsory  arbitration  is  undoubtedly  a 
sound  one,  even  as  it  has  proven  so  completely  to  be, 
[212] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

much  that  we  hear  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding,  in 
New  Zealand,  in  Australia,  for  example. 

Were  employer  and  workmen  the  cnly  ones  concerned 
in  the  matter  of  compulsory  arbitration  then  it  would 
present  a  somewhat,  in  fact  an  entirely,  different  aspect. 
But  even  then  I  should  thoroughly  believe  in  the  prin- 
ciple, when  the  strike  or  the  lockout  would  appear  the 
only  way  of  adjusting  the  differences.  Men  or  groups  of 
men  in  the  mad,  the  fighting  condition,  are  not  as  cap- 
able of  adjusting  difficulties  as  fairly  —  and  there  can 
be  no  lasting  peace  unless  mutual  fairness  enters  —  as 
an  able  and  impartial  body  of  men  selected  for  this 
purpose.  And  the  enormous  losses  entailed  upon  both 
sides  when  the  strike  is  at  all  long  drawn  out,  are,  it 
seems  to  me,  thoroughly  ill-advised.  The  ability  to 
strike  enables  the  workers  to  bring  their  difficulties  or 
grievances  to  the  point  where,  were  it  not  strong  enough 
to  possess  this  ability,  it  would  be  in  a  most  deplorable 
condition. 

Two  men  have  a  difference.  The  time  was  when, 
worked  up  by  rage  into  a  fury  —  thoroughly  mad, 
one  species  of  temporary  insanity  —  they  took  their 
bludgeons  and  pounded  away  at  the  skulls  of  each  other. 
We  have  grown.  When  two  men  have  a  difference  they 
are  not  allowed  to  go  into  the  street  and  bludgeon  one 
another,  or  deal  with  one  another  in  the  manner  of  even 
the  modern  fisticuff  manner.  The  public  has  long  ago 
decreed  that  they  take  their  differences  in  an  orderly  and 
common-sense  way  before  a  man  or  a  body  of  men, 
more  calm  and  reasoning,  and  hence  more  capable  of 
[213] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

determining  the  right  of  the  matter  at  issue.  This  is  our 
method,  the  method  that  we  have  found  far  better  than 
the  former  brute  method.  There  is  no  one  of  average 
intelligence  who  would  even  think  of  appearing  in 
public  to  advocate  a  return  to  the  earlier  methods.  In 
this,  however,  the  public  is  scarcely  disturbed,  or  at 
most  but  a  few  persons,  and  then  for  but  a  few  moments 
at  most.  Fisticuffs  are  ordinarily  not  lengthly  affairs.  Is 
there  not  a  thousand  times  more  reason  for  compelling 
this  same  sane,  common-sense  method  when  it  comes  to 
the  disputes  not  of  two  men,  but  of  two  groups  of  men 
that  may  last  for  days  or  even  for  many  weeks,  and 
where  the  entire  community  is  endangered  as  to  life  or 
limb,  where  it  is  inconvenienced,  and  all  of  its  natural 
and  normal  relations  demoralized,  where  it  is  subjected 
at  times  to  tremendous  losses,  and  where  sometimes  for 
weeks  it  is  compelled  simply  to  remain  quiet  and  look 
on  at  these  two  groups  struggling  without  reason  be- 
cause each  is  animated  by  the  desire  for  the  questionable 
glory  of  saying  "we  beat"  ?  I  am  not  saying  that  "we 
beat"  is  always  the  animating  principle  on  the  part  of 
the  contending  parties.  That  in  some  cases  it  is,  that  in 
many  cases  it  is,  is  all  too  evident,  and  sometimes  when 
a  struggle  of  this  kind  has  been  entered  upon,  with  the 
greatest  of  reasons,  it  has  frequently  occurred  that  as  the 
the  conflict  became  extended  the  "we  beat"  business 
became  the  controlling  principle.  The  strike  or  the 
lockout  is  too  much  a  matter  of  vital  public  concern 
to  enable  it  to  be  used  upon  the  slightest  pretext  on  the 
part  of  groups  of  hot-headed  men.  I  say  hot-headed 
[214] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

advisedly  because,  were  it  not  true  of  one  side  or  the 
other  or  of  both,  then  a  less  crude  and  bungling  and  a 
more  common-sense  method  of  settlement  not  only 
could,  but  would  be  found. 

There  was  perhaps  a  justification,  or  at  least  a  reason 
for  the  bludgeon  and  the  pommeling  method  of  settle- 
ment of  differences  between  the  two  men.  In  order  to 
reach  the  period  of  the  "reason  method,"  this  period  had 
to  be  passed  through.  There  was  also  the  same  justifica- 
tion or  reason  for  the  strike  and  lockout  method  in  the 
disputes  between  two  groups  of  men.  This  crude  method 
was  also  at  first  natural.  We  have  too  much  common- 
sense  in  other  matters,  and  in  matters  of  a  very  kindred 
nature  to  allow  it  farther  to  be  said  that  this  method  is 
any  longer  necessary  or  even  natural.  We  become  so 
accustomed  to  certain  conditions  that  at  times  we  do 
not  move  on  as  rapidly  as  is  well  for  us. 

I  beg  to  repeat  the  statement  that  when  the  strike  or  the 
lockout  is  resorted  to,  there  is  a  distinct  threefold  loss,  to 
the  worker,  to  the  employer,  to  the  public.  Am  I  right  ? 
Some  months  ago  witnessed  a  strike  in  Chicago,  and  it 
terminated  rather  to  the  disadvantage,  if  anything,  of  the 
side  that  called  it.  Here  are  a  few  facts  taken  at  random 
from  a  general  summary  made  immediately  after  by  the 
Chicago  Tribune:  Duration  in  days,  a  hundred  and 
five;  number  of  garment  workers  originally  involved, 
seventeen;  total  number  of  teamsters  eventually  in- 
volved, four  thousand  six  hundred  and  twenty;  persons 
killed  in  strike  violence,  twenty-one;  persons  injured 
(reported  by  police),  four  hundred  and  fifteen;  police 
[215] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
and  deputy  sheriffs  on  strike  duty,  five  thousand  seven 
hundred;  cost  to  city  and  county  for  extra  police  and 
extra  deputy  sheriff  protection,  four  hundred  and  six 
thousand  five  hundred  dollars;  loss  to  teamsters  in 
wages,  and  cost  to  unions  for  strike  benefits,  one  million 
fifty  thousand  dollars;  cost  to  employers,  (wages  and 
lodging  of  strike-breakers  and  protection  of  wagons), 
two  million  dollars;  shrinkage  in  wholesale,  retail  and 
freight  business  (estimated),  six  million  dollars.  Here 
then  the  cost  to  the  unions  was  a  trifle  over  a  million 
dollars,  to  the  employers,  two  million,  while  the  public 
had  to  pay  to  the  tune  of  between  six  and  seven  million 
dollars,  besides  shouldering  all  the  exasperating  in- 
conveniences and  a  compulsory  witnessing  of  all  the 
diabolical  happenings  that  were  thrown  in  its  way. 

If  this  virtual  defeat  for  the  unions  was  caused,  as  it 
is  claimed,  by  incompetent  or  self-seeking  leadership, 
so  much  the  worse  for  the  unions  that  permitted  such 
leadership  to  hold  sway  and  to  lead  them  into  such 
positions  where  defeat  was  almost  a  foregone  conclusion. 
How  long  will  it  take  organized  labour  to  learn  its  lessons 
along  this  score  ? 

You  will  recall  that  in  the  summer  of  1900  there  was 
a  street-car  strike  in  St.  Louis.  The  side  in  error,  the 
side  chiefly  to  blame  in  this  strike,  was  the  company, 
and  when  it  was  ended  the  chief  defeat  was  also  on  its 
side.  In  this  strike  the  loss  to  the  men  in  wages  was  a 
trifle  less  than  half  a  million  dollars ;  the  loss  to  the  com- 
pany in  fares,  in  operating,  and  in  damage  to  cars  and 
plant  was  two  million  dollars;  the  loss  to  the  city  in 
[216] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

business  alone,  to  say  nothing  of  loss  in  extra  police 
and  deputy  sheriff  needs,  was  thirty  million  dollars; 
there  were  fourteen  killed,  seventy  injured  by  bullets, 
a  hundred  and  fifty  injured  otherwise.  Here  then  is  a 
loss  —  in  money  alone  of  thirty  million  dollars  on  the 
part  of  the  public  compared  to  a  combined  loss  of  a  little 
less  then  two  and  a  half  million  dollars  on  the  part  of 
the  company  and  its  workmen.  Who  shall  say  that  the 
right  or  even  the  duty  on  the  part  of  the  public  in  this 
case  is  not  of  a  very  clear-cut  and  certain  nature. 
Under  the  head  "The  St.  Louis  Strike  Folly"  an  edi- 
torial in  the  Boston  Daily  Globe  at  the  conclusion  of  the 
strike  spoke  as  follows:  "This  strike  was  begun  inno- 
cently enough  on  May  8th.  On  that  day  3,500  men  stop- 
ped work.  It  was  a  fight  on  the  part  of  the  company  to 
destroy  the  labour  union,  and  because  the  company  has 
succeeded  in  compelling  300  union  men  to  go  back  to  work 
and  leave  the  union,  and  moreover  succeeded  in  import- 
ing more  than  3,000  men  to  run  its  cars  day  and  night, 
it  calls  this  a  'victory.'  A  few  such  'victories'  as  this 
scattered  over  this  continent  would  create  a  general 
civil  war,  in  which  victory  would  finally  poise  at  the 
point  of  the  federal  bayonet.  For  a  corporation  to  call 
a  settlement  forced  by  such  conditions  'victory'  is  a 
libel  on  the  English  language.  Yet  the  unions,  animated 
by  the  same  spirit  that  possesses  the  company,  claim  a 
Victory,'   too. 

"  No,  this  is  not  'victory,'  in  this  day  when  reason  and 
the  moral  sense  are  supposed  to  have  superseded  the 
gun  and  the  bludgeon.  It  is  defeat,  dismal  defeat  for  both 
[217] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

the  company  and  the  men.  The  only  victory  is  found 
in  the  agreement  of  both  sides  to  resume  their  old  re- 
lations,  forgive  and  forget  old  scores  and  begin  all  over 
again  to  be  reasonable  human  beings.  If  anybody  can 
conceive  a  victory  after  such  disgraceful  proceedings, 
where  does  it  come  in  for  the  700,000  people  of  the  town 
who  have  been  inconvenienced  for  nearly  two  months 
and  whose  losses  in  business  are  reckoned  at  $30,000,- 
000?  How  many  taxpayers  of  St.  Louis  will  feel  like 
calling  this  a  victory  by  and  by,  when  the  costs  have 
to  be  settled  ? 

"  This  strike  has  had  some  features  that  are  liable  to 
sadly  demoralize  the  calculations  of  corporations  who 
fancy  that  the  victory  is  won  as  soon  as  they  succeed 
in  hiring  men  to  take  the  places  of  the  strikers.  This  was 
the  case  in  St.  Louis.  The  company  has  '  broken  the 
back'  of  the  strike,  but  in  breaking  that  back  it  was 
at  the  same  time  depleting  its  treasury  so  rapidly  that 
it  was  forced  to  make  an  agreement  with  the  strikers 
in  order  to  save  itself  from  impending  ruin. 

"  Such  a  strike  as  this  ought  never  again  to  be  possible 
in  this  country.  It  cost  the  company  over  $1,500,000  in 
fares  alone  for  its  'victory.'  It  cost  the  men  $500,000  in 
wages.  It  brought  disgrace  upon  a  supposed  civilized 
American  city.  The  fierce  boycott  has  been  the  cause 
of  cowardly  murders  and  assaults  upon  women.  It  has 
engendered  bitterness  among  families  and  friends  that 
will  rankle  for  many  years  to  come.  And  all  for  what  ? 
In  order  that  somebody  might  finally  be  able  to  boast 
of  a  victory.  Now  both  parties  have  fought  to  a  stand- 
[218] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

still,  and  both,  maimed,  crippled  and  disgraced,  have 
been  forced  to  an  agreement  which  each  calls  a  'victory  ?' 
How  childish  and  how  unworthy  of  intelligent  men! 
Arbitration  could  have  easily  settled  all  this  when  it 
began.  Now  nothing  is  settled,  except  the  fact  that  both 
sides  have  virtually  been  defeated.  When  will  men  ever 
learn  anything  from  these  sad  experiences  ?  " 

To  say  that  it  is  advisable  longer  to  allow  two  groups 
of  men  to  engage  in  such  a  disruption  of  public  order 
and  decency,  throwing  this  enormous  expense  upon  the 
shoulders  of  the  general  public,  simply  because  one 
party  or  the  other,  and  generally  the  one  least  in  the 
right,  is  so  bull-headed,  or  so  lacking  in  ordinary  brain 
capacity  as  well  as  in  business  insight  as  to  be  incapable 
of  adjusting  these  difficulties  without  a  resort  to  such 
clumsy  and  brutal  methods,  seems  to  me  to  be  almost 
an  insult  to  the  most  ordinary  degree  of  public  intelli- 
gence. I  don't  think  there  is  an  average  of  one  person  in 
fifty  who,  cognizant  of  all  the  facts,  really  believes  that 
it  is  either  advisable  or  possessing  even  the  qualities  of 
ordinary  common-sense.  What  a  commentary  then  upon 
the  lack  of  initiative  or  movement  on  our  part  to  allow 
this  method  with  all  its  attendant  horrors,  and  with 
practically  nothing  in  its  justification,  still  to  be  employ- 
ed. Especially  is  this  true  when  there  is  already  a  clearly 
demonstrated   better  method. 

Sometime  ago  Carroll  D.  Wright,  then  United  States 
Commissioner  of  Labour,  in  an  article  in  the  North 
American  Review  gave  some  of  his  findings  in  connec- 
tion with  an  investigation  of  the  matter  of  strikes  in  the 
[219] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

United  States  since  1880.  Between  1881  and  1900  there 
were  about  twenty-three  thousand  strikes,  which  would 
be  an  average  of  more  than  a  thousand  a  year.  Nearly 
fifty-one  per  cent  of  all  these  strikes  were  successful, 
thirteen  per  cent  succeeded  partly,  while  the  remaining 
thirty-six  per  cent  failed.  Over  six  million  employees 
were  involved  and  were  out  of  work  for  a  longer  or  a 
shorter  period.  Their  loss  owing  to  idleness  was  nearly 
two  hundred  and  fifty-eight  million  dollars.  The  loss 
to  their  employers  was  about  a  hundred  and  twenty- 
three  million  dollars,  or  a  little  less  than  one-half  the 
loss  to  them. 

I  have  given  just  the  losses  from  a  monetary  stand- 
point, and  to  the  two  parties  engaged  in  these  industrial 
wars.  The  still  greater  losses  to  the  public  at  large,  not 
only  from  a  monetary  standpoint,  but  in  almost  innum- 
erable ways  otherwise,  can  be  imagined  by  the  aid  of 
the  detailed  statistics  relating  to  the  two  strikes  already 
mentioned. 

One  of  the  concluding  observations  by  Mr.  Wright 
in  this  article  is  abundantly  worthy  of  notice:  "It  is 
recognized  now  that  labour  conflicts  grow  out  of  increas- 
ing intelligence.  The  avoidance  or  adjustment  of  such 
conflicts  must  be  the  result  of  increased  intelligence. 
Fools  do  not  strike;  it  is  only  men  who  have  intelligence 
enough  to  recognize  their  condition  that  make  use  of 
this  last  resort.  With  increased  intelligence  they  will 
look  back  upon  the  strike  period  as  one  of  development; 
and  when  they  shall  have  accommodated  themselves  to 
the  new  conditions,  and  when  employers  shall  have  recog- 
[220] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

nized  the  increased  intelligence  of  their  employees, 
these  matters  will  be  handled  in  such  a  way  as  to  prevent 
in  the  future  a  repetition  of  incidents  like  those  which 
are  chronicled  in  the  statistical  history  of  the  strikes 
of  the  last  twenty  years.  " 

It  is  generally  the  case,  in  the  majority  of  strikes 
always  the  case,  that  the  loss  to  the  workers,  who  are 
far  less  able  to  stand  it,  is  considerably  greater  than  that 
sustained  by  the  employers.  The  latter,  moreover, 
have  a  way  of  making  the  public  finally  pay  their  losses, 
in  addition  to  the  still  heavier  losses  that  are  always 
thrown  upon  it.  Certainly  the  word  dense  is  quite  ap- 
plicable to  the  public  unless  we  take  some  lessons  from 
this  great  array  of  happenings  that  has  come  to  pass, 
and  unless  we  now  move  speedily  along  the  path  of  an 
insistence  upon  compulsory  arbitration  in  that  class 
of  cases  where  no  other  method  of  settlement  but  open 
industrial  warfare  is  able  to  be  reached  by  employer 
and  workmen.  It  seems  to  me  there  can  be  no  shadow 
of  a  doubt  in  regard  to  this  when  it  comes  to  strikes  in 
connection  with  any  public  service  industry,  or  any- 
thing where  the  inconvenience  or  loss  to  the  public  is 
specially  great. 

I  think  there  is  no  better  way  of  terminating  this 
very  brief  examination  of  the  points  that  seem  to  favour 
a  compulsory  arbitration  plan  in  those  cases  that  are  not 
or  that  apparently  cannot  be  settled  through  mutual  con- 
cessions or  by  conciliation,  with  the  result  that  the  matter 
is  thrown  onto  the  public  in  the  form  of  an  open  war- 
fare, than  by  a  very  brief  consideration  of  New  Zealand's 
[221] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

arbitration  court  methods.  From  that  portion  of  the 
world  we  got  our  Australian  ballot-system  that  has 
proved  to  be  better  than  anything  we  had  to  compare 
with  it.  We  can  get  still  other  things  of  good  value  there, 
the  same  as  still  older  nations  are  from  time  to  time 
getting  things  of  good  value  from  us. 

The  New  Zealand  law  was  drawn  up  by  Hon.  William 
P.  Reeves,  former  Minister  of  Labour,  after  a  most 
careful  study  of  the  arbitration  methods  of  various 
other  countries.  It  was  passed  after  considerable  dis- 
cussion and  not  without  opposition,  on  its  merits,  some- 
thing more  than  ten  years  ago.  Organization  is,  it  might 
be  said,  the  keynote  to  the  working  of  the  law.  Em- 
ployers and  workmen  are  expected  to  form  organizations 
on  the  assumption  that  all  interests  are  best  promoted 
by  the  organization  of  labour.  The  act,  therefore,  cannot 
be  invoked  by  or  against  workmen  not  organized  in 
unions,  though  employers  may  be  sued  singly.  Very 
briefly  summarized  the  chief  points  of  the  law  are, 
"First,  the  privilege  of  securing  voluntary  arbitration 
quietly;  and,  second,  voluntary  arbitration  failing,  the 
law  forces  publicity  and  compels  reference  to  a  concili- 
ation board  and  obedience  to  the  law's  awards.  The 
parties  in  dispute  go  first  before  the  local  board  of 
conciliation,  there  being  six  of  such  boards  in  all,  and 
from  there,  if  unsettled,  the  appeal  can  be  made  to  the 
final  court  of  arbitration  sitting  for  the  whole  country. 
.  .  .  The  boards  and  court  are  composed  equally 
of  chosen  representatives  of  both  employer  and  em- 
ployed. A  guarantee  of  ability,  experience,  dignity  and 
[222] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

entire  disinterestedness  is  expected  to  be  secured  by  the 
appointment  of  a  judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  as  presi- 
dent of  the  court  of  arbitration.  It  is  a  suggestive  fact 
that  every  precaution  is  taken  that  the  proceedings 
shall  be  cheap,  expeditious  and  non-technical.  Its  im- 
mediate value  inheres  in  the  fact  that  the  industry  goes 
on  uninterruptedly  while  proceedings  are  pending. " 

In  a  letter  which  appeared  in  the  New  York  Evening 
Post  sometime  ago,  Mr.  Edward  Tregear,  then  Secre- 
tary for  Labour  in  New  Zealand,  in  reviewing  various 
statements  that  have  gained  circulation  here  regarding 
the  failure  of  this  arbitration  court  method  in  New 
Zealand,  says:  "Compulsory  arbitration  (as  it  has 
been  nicknamed)  is  so  far  from  being  a  disastrous  failure 
that  it  is  here  considered  a  pronounced  success.  Only  a 
revolution  could  displace  it.  Last  session  an  amending 
act  was  passed  whereby  the  Boards  of  Conciliation 
(which  have  no  power  of  enforcing  their  recommenda- 
tions) were  practically  set  aside  in  favour  of  the  Court 
of  Arbitration  that  can  enforce  its  awards  with  all  the 
powers  of  the  Supreme  Court.  .  .  .  Here,  then, 
as  answer  to  calumnies  set  abroad  by  interested  persons, 
we  have  the  spectacle  of  the  people  of  a  colony,  after 
seven  years'  experience  of  compulsory  arbitration, 
approving  and  reapproving  its  principle.  Our  nearest 
colonial  neighbour,  New  South  Wales,  sent  one  of  its 
leading  judges  across  to  us  to  investigate  the  working 
of  our  act  on  the  spot.  As  a  result,  that  colony  has  just 
passed  a  compulsory  arbitration  act  of  a  more  drastic 
character  than  ours,  for  there  are  no  Boards  of  Con- 
[223] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

ciliation  provided  for  New  South  Wales.  South  Aus- 
tralia and  Western  Australia  have  similar  legislation  on 
our  model.  Strange  that,  if  we  have  failed,  our  near 
neighbours  are  so  blind  as  to  follow  us  into  the  pit  into 
which  we  floundered  in  1894.      .     .     . 

"  In  regard  to  the  relations  between  employer  and 
employee  being  strained,  may  I  ask  whether  good  feeling 
is  promoted  by  strikes,  lockouts,  picketing,  Pinkerton's 
detectives,  etc.  ?  Compulsory  arbitration  certainly  has 
not  strained  this  feeling.  Last  session  of  Parliament 
the  Right  Hon.  Mr.  Seddon,  who  is  Minister  for  Labour, 
as  well  as  Premier,  declared  to  the  House  of  Represen- 
tatives :  'There  has  never  been  a  better  feeling  between 
employers  and  employed  than  at  the  present  moment, 
.  .  .  So  far  as  my  power  of  observation  goes,  class 
bitterness  is  almost  unknown  in  New  Zealand,  and 
most  kindly  feelings  exist  between  employer  and  em- 
ployed. " 

He  then  proceeds  to  consider  the  general  outlook  of 
the  country,  also  the  fact  that  years  ago  they  were  told 
that  the  effect  of  labour  legislation  would  be  to  "  drive 
capital  out  of  the  country.  "  In  answer  to  this  he  shows 
that  during  the  period  between  1894  and  1902  for  ex- 
ample, capital  instead  of  spreading  its  wings  for  flight, 
had  extended  its  operations  so  that  the  number  of  men 
employed  had  more  than  doubled,  and  that  the  total 
trade  of  New  Zealand  during  this  period  had  nearly 
doubled  in  volume. 

Organized  labour  stands  at  one  of  the  most  critical 
periods  in  its  history  at  the  present  time,  in  this  country 
[224] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

at  least.  And,  although  I  believe  it  is  coming  through 
successfully,  it  nevertheless  will  receive  some  strong 
knocks  and  will  suffer  some  severe  and  entirely  un- 
necessary set  backs,  unless  some  of  its  worst  practices, 
or  rather  those  of  some  of  its  members  and  sections, 
are  quickly  eradicated.  Flushed  with  pride  undoubtedly 
in  attaining  to  the  degree  of  power  and  recognition  it 
has  so  far  attained  to,  the  members  of  some  groups 
of  organized  labour,  especially  in  the  larger  cities,  are 
already  showing  marked  symptoms  of  severe  attacks 
of  the  "  swelled  head, "  and  their  conception  of  their 
rights  is  getting  so  fine  that  the  rights  of  those  employing 
them  and  of  the  general  public,  are  now  so  minimized 
that  they  have  become  of  almost  microscopic  propor- 
tions. Especially  is  this  true  in  those  lines  of  work  where 
the  public  is  concerned  rather  than  the  employer  of 
labour  in  works.  And,  when  organized  labour,  "The 
Union"  becomes  a  shield  for  incompetent  or  shirking 
workmen,  or  backs  them  in  giving  a  wholly  inadequate 
day's  work  for  a  good  high  wage,  or  in  carelessness  of 
the  rights  and  amenities  due  to  others,  or  a  reasonable 
care  of  their  belongings,  or  when  it  becomes  too  techni- 
cal, or  too  fine  in  its  rules  and  its  methods  and  its  general 
programme,  then  it  will  alienate  an  intelligent  and 
otherwise  sympathetic  public,  so  that  its  losses  will 
quickly  begin  to  balance  its  gains,  and  it  will  by  its  own 
foolhardiness,  set  a  limitation  to  its  advance  and  pro- 
gress, that  otherwise  could  not  be  set.  If  the  animating 
motive  is  continual  getting,  with  thoughts  only  of  "  us  " 
and  "ours"  with  no  adequate  return,  and  no  sense  of 
[225] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

its  relationship  with  the  great  public  welfare,  then  it 
will  soon  fall  into  the  pit  of  arrogance  and  pure  self- 
seeking  without  due  consideration  of  the  rights  of  others, 
rebellion  against  which  was  the  very  thing  that  brought 
the  labour  organization  into  existence.  A  permanent 
organization  or  institution  cannot  be  built  upon  any 
such  basis. 

A  "labour  trust "  is  just  as  obnoxious  to  the  great  com- 
mon people,  as  is  a  capitalistic  trust  and  they  will  stand 
for  one  no  more  than  they  will  stand  for  the  other,  and 
moreover  they  will  in  time  find  a  method  of  putting 
down  and  out  of  business  the  one,  the  fame  as  they 
surely  will  the  other.  And  again,  if  browbeating  be- 
comes too  dominant  a  factor,  if  terrorism,  and  murder, 
and  kindred  villianous  methods  become  too  frequent 
or  habitual,  and  too  fully  condoned  by  organized  labour 
in  efforts  to  coerce  other  equally  honest  and  worthy  men 
who  cannot  see  their  way  to  sanction  all  their  methods, 
or  still  others  who  are  too  brave  or  too  manly  to  sit 
idly  by  and  see  their  families  driven  and  pinched  by 
want,  then  also  a  suicidal  blow  will  be  struck  that  will 
be  a  tremendous  hindrance  to  what  would  otherwise 
be  a  more  gradual  but  a  permanent  growth.  The  methods 
of  the  brute  are  used  only  where  brains  are  not  equal 
to  the  task  it  is  desired  to  accomplish.  In  this  way 
many  of  the  strongest  and  best  men  in  the  labour  ranks 
will  be  turned  against  it,  and  will  in  time  become  a  most 
powerful  element  backed  by  the  great  public  sympathy 
to  be  reckoned  with.  Better  grow  a  little  more  slowly, 
and  in  accordance  with  just  and  righteous  laws,  and 
[226] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

hence  more  surely  and  permanently,  than  to  try  the 
short-cut  methods,  for  in  this  way  many  get  swamped 
and  tremendously  delayed,  while  others  never  "  arrive.  " 
Those  of  the  policies  and  methods  above  described 
become  a  sore  upon  the  great  body  of  splendid,  hon- 
ourable labour,  which  can  illy  afford  to  condone  or  stand 
for  such  methods;  and  personally,  I  don't  believe  it 
will  very  much  longer,  nor  even  countenance  them. 

Does  this  seem  like  plain  speaking  ?  The  only  excuse 
to  be  offered,  if  indeed  any  excuse  were  necessary,  is 
that  it  is  spoken  by  one  of  the  truest  friends  that  labour 
has,  and  friends  don't  snivel,  neither  do  they  fawn 
and  having  no  ulterior  ends  to  gain,  there  is  no  need 
for  reticence  in  relation  to  truth,  nor  for  lying. 

I  believe  the  time  is  rapidly  approaching,  and  it  may 
be  indeed  immediately  upon  us  as  some  signs  seem  to 
indicate,  when  labour  is  going  to  push  squarely  into  the 
sphere  of  political  action,  even  as  the  great  masses  of 
the  people  are  moving  along  the  lines  of  political  action, 
unhampered  as  never  before,  because  of  more  open 
vision,  by  political  machines,  or  dictated  to  by  notorious 
old  hacks  as  party  bosses. 

The  day  has  already  arrived  for  this  in  England ;  and 
to-day  —  the  results  of  the  late  election  —  we  see  a 
splendid  body  of  over  fifty  labour  members  in  Parlia- 
ment, and  if  even  fairly  wise  and  discreet  in  their  actions, 
as  I  fully  believe  they  will  be,  their  numbers  will  con- 
tinue to  increase,  and  there  will  be  a  strong  party  right 
in  Parliament  thinking  and  working  directly  for  the  in- 
terests of  the  great  common  people,  not  so  hopelessly 
[227] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

impotent,  so  far  as  actual  accomplishment  is  concerned, 
as  have  been  most  of  the  political  parties  there  during 
the  last  decade  or  more.  I  have  long  thought,  looking 
at  the  numbers  of  the  one  and  of  the  other,  that  the 
time  had  nearly  come  in  Great  Britain  for  the  doing 
away  of  the  House  of  Lords,  and  substituting  in  its 
place  shall  we  say,  a  House  of  Labour.  But,  things 
move  sometimes  in  a  most  indirect  way,  and  it  may  be 
that  through  this  the  beginning  of  a  long  needed 
labour  and  people's  movement,  this  result  in  effect 
would  be  brought  about. 

Who  knows  but  that  one  of  its  greatest  needs,  perhaps 
the  greatest  need  it  has  to-day,  will  be  served  by  this  new 
movement  —  that  England  and  Scotland  and  Ireland 
will  more  rapidly  be  freed  from  the  centuries  old  curse 
of  landlordism,  and  that  the  land  now  so  held  will  be 
nationalized  or  in  some  wise  method  be  brought  back 
to  the  use  of  the  people.  The  Labour  Party  in  co-operation 
with  the  progressive  wing  of  the  Liberal  Party,  should 
be  able  to  bring  about  this  sorely  and  long  needed  end. 

And  then  if,  speaking  along  general  good  lines,  this 
combination  could  give  to  Great  Britain  a  new,  a  better 
and  broader  universal  public-school  system,  something, 
I  do  not  hesitate  to  say,  akin  to  our  own,  or  better  still,  then 
they  would  at  once  be  dealing  with  one  of  its  greatest  de- 
linquencies and  one  of  its  greatest  and  most  pressing 
needs.  In  this  way  numbers  of  other  ailments,  resulting 
directly  from  one  or  the  other  of  these,  or  from  both, 
would  begin  to  be  healed  without  any  other  special 
direct  treatment.  The  excessive  amount  of  drinking 
[228] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

among  the  working  classes,  and  among  both  men  and 
women,  the  bane  and  the  curse  of  this  phase  of  British 
life  to-day,  and  now  almost  universally  recognized  as 
such,  would  begin  at  once  to  be  on  the  decrease.  It 
comes  primarily  from  the  vacancy,  the  hopelessness,  the 
want  and  the  despair  in  the  lives  of  these  vast  numbers 
of  Britain's  population  that  have  been  induced  directly 
or  indirectly  by  these  two  causes,  probably  as  much  or 
more  than  by  all  other  causes  combined.  And,  speaking 
along  the  same  line,  who  knows  but  that  the  splendid 
Socialist  body  in  the  German  Parliament  to-day,  already 
numbering  between  seventy  and  eighty  members,  and 
steadily  increasing  in  numbers  and  in  influence,  will  have 
as  its  essential  or  primary  mission,  the  freeing  of 
Germany  of  what  royal  and  the  privileged  classes  have 
evidently  neither  the  brains  nor  the  inclination  to  throw 
off,  even  for  the  relief  of  millions  of  people,  the  monstrous 
military  system,  under  which  it  labours  year  after  year. 

I  think  this  new  Labour  Party  in  England  as  it  grows 
will  give  its  aid  also  in  dealing  more  humanely, 
honourably  and  hence  in  a  more  statesman-like-ship 
manner  with  India. 

And  to  labour  in  politics  in  this  country  I  would  say, 
remember  a  fact  accentuated  by  the  fact  of  Britain's 
high  and  enviable  position  as  regards  cleanliness  in 
politics,  that  we  of  the  United  States,  notwithstanding 
our  inclination  to  think  otherwise,  are  among  the  lowest 
of  the  low  in  this  respect,  especially  in  our  municipal 
politics.  And  remember  that  this  condition  has  come 
about  because  we  as  a  people  have  so  allowed  commer- 
[229] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

cialism  and  large  moneyed  interests  to  take  from  us  and 
convert  to  themselves  such  valuable  properties  that  their 
greed  for  more  has  become  so  insatiable  that  no  man  who 
fills  public  office  to-day,  municipal,  state,  or  national,  is 
sure  to  escape  their  blighting  and  benumbing  influences. 
Hence,  be  careful  in  your  nominees  and  in  men  to  whom 
you  give  your  political  support.  A  direct  or  an  indirect 
gift,  depending  upon  whether  at  any  particular  centre 
these  agencies  composed  of  our  "successful"  and  "re- 
spectable" fellow  citizens,  are  bold  and  brazen  in  their 
methods,  or  very  plausible  and  smooth  and  cunning  — 
a  direct  or  an  indirect  gift,  to  repeat,  of  fifty  thousand 
or  a  hundred  thousand  or  more  dollars,  is  a  very  sore 
temptation  to  a  man  in  moderate  circumstances,  or  to  a 
poor  man.  The  essential  thing  is  to  have  men  of  known 
and  proven  integrity.  Better  a  man  of  less  culture,  or 
even  more  liable  to  errors  in  judgment,  than  one  subject 
to  the  money  bags  of  the  "  successful "  and  "  respectable  " 
despoiler,  the  arch  enemy  of  American  institutions  and 
of  American  citizenship  to-day. 

Another  point  I  will  suggest,  hoping  it  will  be  received 
in  the  spirit  in  which  it  is  given:  Be  not  displeased  or 
dissatisfied,  if  those  you  elect,  or  those  to  whom  you  give 
your  support,  do  not  vote  favourably  for  every  labour  bill 
that  is  proposed.  Labour's  welfare,  and  the  welfare  of 
any  class  or  portion,  must  be  always  subservient  to  the 
general  welfare.  Class  legislation  is  always  in  time 
unsatisfactory  and  destructive  in  its  results.  Class  legis- 
lation emanating  from  labour  alone,  would  be  but 
slightly  preferable  if  any  to  that  emanating  from  capital 
[230] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

alone.  Only  as  the  general  good  is  guarded  and  fostered 
and  advanced  will  that  of  any  class  or  portion  be  really 
and  permanently  conserved.  Here  is  an  inestimable 
service  that  lies  in  the  power,  if  it  lies  in  the  heart,  of 
labour  to  render  itself  and  the  nation. 

There  is  indeed  a  prophetic  insight  in  the  words  of 
the  "  Good  Gray  Bard  of  Democracy, "  words  that  were 
written  by  Walt  Whitman  nearly  forty  years  ago: 
"I  expect  to  see  the  day  when  the  like  of  the  present 
personnel  of  the  governments  —  Federal,  State,  muni- 
cipal, military  and  naval  —  will  be  looked  upon  with 
derision,  and  when  qualified  mechanics  and  young  men 
will  reach  Congress  and  other  official  stations,  sent  in 
their  working  costumes,  fresh  from  their  benches  and 
tools  and  returning  to  them  again  with  dignity.  The 
young  fellows  must  prepare  to  do  credit  to  this  destiny, 
for  the  stuff  is  in  them. " 

The  following  are  a  few  characteristic  words  from  a 
speech  to  his  constituency  by  an  able  member  of  the 
British  Labour  Party,  who  has  served  with  great  ability 
in  Parliament  before,  and  who  in  spite  of  much  strenuous 
opposition  was  re-elected  at  the  recent  election  by  a 
majority  of  something  upwards  of  ten  thousand  votes. 
"  The  working  class,  professional  men  and  shop- 
keepers are  all  struggling  —  some  few  to  make  a  com- 
petence, but  the  great  majority  to  earn  a  livelihood. 
Millions  are  steeped  in  poverty  whilst  millions  more  are 
but  one  degree  removed  from  it.  While  the  useful  classes 
toil  and  suffer,  the  owners  of  land  and  capital,  and  the 
schemers  and  gamblers  of  the  Stock  Exchange,  are 
[231] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

heaping  up  untold  wealth.  Whilst  the  poor  die  for  lack 
of  the  barest  necessaries  of  life,  the  rich  revel  in  a  riot 
of  excess.  Great  accumulations  of  wealth  menace  our 
liberties,  control  the  great  London  organs  of  the  press, 
lead  us  into  wars  abroad,  and  poison  the  wells  of  public 
life  at  home.  Landlordism  and  capitalism  are  the  upper 
and  nether  millstones  between  which  the  life  of  the 
common  people  is  being  ground  to  dust. 

"  My  one  object  in  politics  is  to  aid  in  creating  the 
public  opinion  which  will  sweep  away  the  causes  which 
produce  poverty,  vice,  crime,  drunkenness  and  im- 
morality, and  introduce  an  era  of  freedom,  fraternity 
and  equality.  This  ideal  state  cannot  be  reached  at  one 
step,  but  much  can  be  done  to  mitigate  some  of  the  grav- 
er evils  arising  out  of  our  present  system  of  wealth  pro- 
duction. The  immediate  object  of  the  Labour  Party 
is  to  create  a  driving  force  in  politics  which  will  overcome 
the  inertia  of  politicians  in  regard  to  social  reforms,  and 
give  the  nation  a  strong,  true  lead  along  the  paths 
which  make  for  national  righteousness.  To  see  that 
children  are  properly  fed  and  cared  for,  that  the  able 
are  given  an  opportunity  to  work,  and  that  comfort  is 
brought  into  the  life  of  the  aged,  are  objects  worth 
striving  for.  These  things  lie  outside  the  domain  of 
ordinary  party  politics,  but  they  must  be  attended  to 
if  the  nation  is  to  be  saved  from  decay;  and  should  I 
again  be  returned  as  your  representative,  it  will  be  my 
main  concern  to  see  that  they  are  attended  to. 

"  As  a  Democrat,  I  am  opposed  to  every  form  of  heredi- 
tary rule,  and  in  favour  of  conferring  full  and  unfettered 
[232] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

powers  upon  the  common  people.  In  this  connection  I 
include  women  as  well  as  men.  " 

I  think  it  is  peculiarly  fitting  that  an  utteranee  of 
Lincoln  close  this  part:* 

"  In  my  present  position  I  could  scarcely  be  justified 
were  I  to  omit  raising  a  warning  voice  against  the  ap- 
proach of  returning  despotisms.  It  is  not  needed  nor 
fitting  here  that  a  general  argument  should  be  made  in 
favour  of  popular  institutions,  but  there  is  one  point 
not  so  hackneyed  to  which  I  ask  a  brief  attention.  It 
is  the  effort  to  place  capital  on  an  equal  footing  with, 
if  not  above,  labour  in  the  structure  of  government  It 
is  assumed  that  labour  is  available  only  in  connection 
with  capital;  that  nobody  labours  unless  somebody  else 
owning  capital  somehow  by  the  use  of  it  induces  him  to 
labour.  But  capital  is  the  fruit  of  labour  and  could  never 
have  existed  if  labour  had  not  first  existed.  Labour  is  the 
superior  of  capital  and  deserves  much  the  higher  con- 
sideration. No  men  living  are  more  worthy  to  be  trusted 
than  those  who  toil  up  from  poverty;  none  less  inclined 
to  take  or  touch  aught  which  they  have  not  honestly 
earned.  Let  them  beware  of  surrendering  a  political 
power  which  they  already  possess,  and  which,  if  surren- 
dered, will  surely  be  used  to  close  the  door  of  advance- 
ment against  such  as  they  and  to  fix  new  dis- 
abilities and  burden  upon  them  until  all  of  liberty  shall 
be  lost. " 

Prophetic  words, spoken   of  all  who  labour,  and  also 
words   which   show   Lincoln's   matchless   faith   in  the 

*  In  Message  to  Congress,  December  3,  1861. 
[233] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

great  common  people.  He  came  from  them,  he  knew 
them,  and  he  loved  them.  Can  anyone  have  a  doubt 
as  to  where  he  would  stand  in  connection  with  the  great 
and  pressing  questions  that  are  immediately  before  us  ? 


[  234] 


VIII 

METHODS    WHEREBY    WE    SHALL    SECURE 
THE  PEOPLE'S  GREATEST  GOOD 

11 OW  can  we,  as  a  people,  get  the  machinery  of  govern- 
ment back  into  our  own  hands  ?  How  can  we  meet  and 
battle  with  and  defeat  the  combination  which  great 
moneyed,  corporate  interests  have  made  with  the 
political  machine,  the  combination  that  has  already 
well-nigh  throttled  democratic  or  representative  govern- 
ment in  the  nation  ?  We  have  seen  by  illustrations  per- 
haps almost  too  prolific,  how  the  people's  will  is  thwarted, 
how  their  desires  are  disregarded,  and  how  they  have 
literally  to  fight  their  chosen  representatives  in  order 
to  prevent  them  from  selling  out  their  interests  com- 
pletely to  the  agencies  already  mentioned. 

We  need  now  a  new  and  more  comprehensive  appli- 
cation of  the  term,  traitor,  so  that  it  includes  in  its  scope, 
the  one  who,  as  a  chosen  and  supposed  representative 
of  the  people  and  hence  of  the  country,  for  gold  or  for 
whatever  gain,  conspires  with  the  enemies  of  his  people, 
and  sells  to  them  his  people's  interests,  as  hundreds  of 
our  representatives,  municipal,  state,  national  have 
done  in  one  form  or  another  the  past  twelve  months, 
the  same  as  for  many  years  that  are  gone.  They  will 
r  235  1 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

continue  to  do  so  and  in  greater  numbers  and  to  greater 
extent  as  each  year  passes,  unless  we  as  a  people  begin 
in  some  effective  and  common-sense  way  to  attend 
diligently  to  our  own  affairs  in  government.  This  is 
not  a  mere  putting  together  of  words,  nor  a  false  charge, 
nor  an  idle,  thoughtless  statement,  but  a  hard,  cold, 
though  exceedingly  unwelcome,  fact. 

We  must  take  it  out  of  the  power  of  men  to  make 
traitors  in  civil  life,  which  are  far  more  destructive 
and  disastrous  to  the  people's  and  therefore  to  the 
nation's  welfare,  than  the  occasional  traitor  that  ap- 
pears in  time  of  war.  I  had  almost  said  this  tendency 
must  be  checked,  but  the  hard,  cold  facts  demand  one 
instead  to  say,  this  condition  that  is  actually  among  us, 
sucking  the  very  life-blood  from  the  body  of  freemen, 
must  be  speedily  checked  and  driven  from  out  the  land,  or 
the  dissolution  of  the  nation  is  to  be  the  inevitable  result, 
in  addition  to  the  humiliation  attendant  upon  this  con- 
dition, and  also  the  great  losses  we  have  already  sus- 
tained and  will  sustain  to  a  continually  increasing  degree. 

Our  governmental  institutions  to-day,  not  in  theory 
perhaps,  but  as  they  actually  exist,  are  neither  demo- 
cratic nor  representative.  This  no  thoughtful,  clear- 
seeing  man  at  all  acquainted  with  existing  conditions 
will  even  attempt  to  deny,  however  great  may  be  his 
desire  to  do  so.  It  is  not  necessary  here  to  ask,  Why  is 
this  so  ?  This  we  have  gone  into  both  directly  and  in- 
directly, to  almost  a  wearying  extent  already.  The  ques- 
tion is,  How  shall  we  get  back  in  fact,  and  in  actual 
practice  and  results,  to  what  government  among  us 
[236] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

is  in  theory  —  the  government  and  institutions  upon 
which  we  so  pride  ourselves? 

A  serious  shortcoming  in  our  institutions  has  de- 
veloped itself,  a  shortcoming  which  could  scarcely 
be  foreseen  in  the  beginning.  We  must  halt  now  to  make 
the  necessary  changes  and  repairs,  or  the  entire  ma- 
chinery will  be  wrecked,  adding  another  huge  junk 
pile  to  the  wrecked  and  worn-out  machinery  of  nations 
that  once  were  great,  but  whose  people  were  unable 
or  illy  inclined  to  see  and  grasp  .the  meaning  of  new 
times  and  conditions,  and  arouse  themselves  sufficiently 
to  master  them  instead  of  suffering  themselves  to  be 
brought  to  a  gradual  ruin  by  them.  A  change  now  is 
essential,  a  repairing  of  the  machinery. 

We  must  take  a  long  step  and  get  back  to,  or  move 
forward  to,  actual  representative  government.  Representa- 
tive, is  here  a  better  word  perhaps  than  democratic. 
The  New  England  town-meeting  still  in  active  opera- 
tion in  hundreds  of  New  England  towns  and  villages, 
and  a  similar  method  in  vogue  in  many  of  our  newer 
western  states,  is  perhaps  the  best  concrete  example 
of  the  latter.  You  who  have  had  part  in  or  who  have 
attended  such  a  meeting  or  meetings,  know  how  each 
year  the  voters  of  the  town  or  village  meet  at  the  duly 
appointed  time  and  place,  and  initiate,  discuss,  vote 
upon  and  adopt  such  measures,  make  such  appropria- 
tions, select  such  men  to  carry  out  their  programme 
as  they  decide  is  necessary  or  advisable  for  the  coming 
year.  You  appreciate  most  fully  how  impossible  it  is 
with  such  a  method  to  sell  out  the  interests  of  the  people 
[237] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

of  the  village  or  town,  because  the  people  are  there  to 
attend  to  their  own  business  and  to  look  after  their 
own  interests.  This  method  works  just  as  effectively 
and  as  safely  now  for  the  interests  of  the  people  as  it 
did  a  hundred  years  ago,  or  when  it  was  first  instituted, 
and  the  reason  is  apparent  on  the  face  of  it.  Those  who 
are  acquainted  with  its  effective  workings,  would  like 
to  see  it  extended  to  all  our  villages  and  towns  through- 
out the  country,  the  same  as  it  is  being  adopted  here 
and  there  in  various  parts  of  our  thriving  newer  western 
states.  Because  it  has  such  a  thorough  common-sense 
basis,  it  works  as  well  in  practice  as  in  theory.  It  is 
better  than  representative  government.  It  is  pure 
democratic   government. 

It  is  the  principle  upon  which  the  institutions  of  a 
great  nation  can  most  safely  be  built.  But  when  it  comes 
to  the  larger  units,  the  large  city,  the  state,  the  na- 
tion, then  its  application  becomes  more  difficult,  if 
not  entirely  out  of  the  question.  As  nearly  as  we  can 
approach  to  it,  however,  is  the  best  government;  and 
in  these  larger  units  we  have  in  theory  an  ideal  system, 
in  that  we  select  men  to  represent  us  at  seats  of  govern- 
ment, municipal,  state,  and  national.  We,  however, 
have  not  completed  the  system.  The  result  is  that  our 
theoretical  representative  government  has  become  in 
practice  thoroughly  and  notoriously  —  with  a  proper 
allowance  of  exceptions  of  course  —  misrepresentative. 
In  other  words  our  system  has  developed,  or  has  given 
evidence  of  some  most  serious  shortcomings,  and  I 
admit,  shortcomings  such  as  could  not  fully  be  foreseen 
[238] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

in  the  beginning,  but  such  as  have  made  it  what  it  has 
become,  in  some  respects,  the  laughing  stock  of  coun- 
tries whose  machinery  of  government  is  supposed  to  be 
far  less  representative  than  our  own.  And  what  we  of  this 
generation  and  those  of  the  generation  rapidly  coming 
upon  the  stage  of  action  are  called  upon  to  do,  is  to  recog- 
nize the  exigencies  of  the  time  and  amend  or  complete 
what  to-day  is  far  from  what  it  must  be  made  to  be. 

Let  the  State  Legislature  be  an  example  of  both 
municipal  and  national  legislative  bodies.  The  chief 
failure  or  weakness  of  any  particular  session  of  any 
legislature  is  that  it  fails  to  do  certain  things  that  the 
interests  of  the  people  require,  and  it  does  various  other 
things  that  are  diametrically  opposed  to  the  interests 
of  the  people,  whose  representatives,  its  members  are 
chosen  nominally  to  be.  Now  the  chief  reason  that  is 
at  the  bottom  of  this  two-fold  failure  has  been  gone 
into  so  fully  in  previous  pages  that  it  is  unnecessary 
to  make  useless  repetition  here.  But  the  point  is,  that 
in  connection  with  the  acts  of  these  nominal  representa- 
tives of  the  people,  the  people  have  practically  no 
recourse,  in  other  words  they  are  absolutely  at  the  mercy 
of  their  agents.  We  act  in  a  way  that  no  business  man, 
even  for  an  instant,  would  think  of  acting  in  connection 
with  his  agents,  or  in  a  way  that  if  he  did  so  act,  his 
business  would  be  irrevocably  ruined  and  in  many  cases 
in  less  time  that  it  would  take  to  describe  the  process. 

Now,  one  feature  in  connection  with  which  it  is 
essential  that  we  immediately  repair  the  machinery  of 
our  government  is,  that  we  have  the  power,  and  the 
[239] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

quick  and  ready  power  to  initiate  whatever  measures 
a  sufficient  number  of  people  feel  the  public  interests 
require.  Another  feature  is,  that  we  have  the  power  to 
veto  whatever  measures  our  chosen  representatives, 
or  supposed  representatives,  may  enact,  that  a  sufficient 
number  of  the  people  feel  are  opposed  to  the  public 
welfare.  These  are  two  principles,  fundamentally  com- 
mon-sense and  essential  in  order  to  perfect  the  running 
machinery  of  our  government. 

In  our  system  of  representative  government  as  it  has 
worked  out  to  the  present  time,  the  people  —  the  source 
of  power  and  in  whose  hands  all  power  should  reside  — 
have  lost,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  the  ability  of 
having  their  desires  or  wishes  put  into  force.  We  delegate 
power  to  men  and  hold  them  in  no  way  responsible  to 
us  for  the  use  of  that  power,  and  with  the  tremendous 
prices  large  corporations,  many  of  them  fattened  off 
of  the  people's  properties,  are  able  to  and  do  pay,  we 
expect  men,  many  of  them  entirely  irresponsible  be- 
cause chosen  by  these  interests  for  the  direct  further- 
ance of  their  ends,  to  work  for  our  interests  and  for  the 
public   welfare. 

We  do  what  no  business  management  would  consent 
to  or  even  think  of  doing,  unless  he  were  deliberately 
inviting  the  disruption  or  the  certain  annihilation  of 
his  business;  and  it  requires  only  the  most  ordinary 
course  of  reasoning  and  especially  when  reinforced 
by  the  lessons  that  are  in  such  vast  numbers  being 
thrust  into  our  faces,  to  know  that  the  continuance  of 
our  representative  system  without  a  safeguard  for  re- 
[240] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

tention  of  power  on  the  part  of  the  principals,  will  mean 
continued  unsatisfactory  and  humiliating  conditions 
and  tremendous  losses,  and  the  eventual  dissolution  of 
every  semblance  of  desirable  government.  In  other 
words  we  have  come  to  a  weakness,  a  breakdown  in 
our  machinery  of  government,  which  could  not  be 
fully  anticipated  by  those  who  gave  us  our  splendid 
beginnings  of  government;  and  which,  let  it  be  said, 
if  we  have  but  half  the  wisdom  they  displayed,  we  will, 
without  delay  and  at  whatever  cost  be  about  repairing 
or  remodelling,  and  we  will  bring  it  up  to  the  develop- 
ment and  to  the  needs  of  the  times. 

Now  in  what  simple  practical  manner  can  we  bring 
these  two  essential  provisions  into  our  respective 
spheres  of  government  ?  Fortunately  we  do  not  have  to 
theorize  in  regard  to  the  matter  at  all;  a  system  has 
already  been  initiated  and  has  been  in  effective  use  for 
many  years  already.  From  a  nation  that  of  all  nations 
has  the  most  ideally  representative  government,  be- 
cause the  most  democratic  in  its  essence,  Switzerland, 
we  have  a  system  that  has  been  in  successful  operation 
for  many  years,  hence  thoroughly  tested,  and  that  has 
worked  equally  well  in  other  countries  where  it  has 
been  put  into  operation,  as  also  in  several  common- 
wealths in  our  own  country. 

It  is  through  the  principle  of  Direct  Legislation,  by 
means  of  the  Initiative  and  Referendum,  that  we  can 
get  the  machinery  of  government  back  into  our  own 
hands,  and  establish  a  truly  representative  system 
of  government  among  us. 

[241] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

"The  Referendum  started  in  1830  in  the  Canton  of 
St.  Gall,  the  Initiative  in  1845  in  the  Canton  of  Vaud. 
Since  those  dates  the  two  institutions  have  marched 
in  a  triumphal  tour  through  the  Swiss  Republic  until 
they  have  been  adopted  in  the  Federal  Constitution. 
It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  within  these  few  years, 
Switzerland  has  been  converted  from  a  nest  of  oligar- 
chies, entrenched  behind  vested  interests,  into  the 
model  Democratic  Republic." 

The  Initiative  means  the  proposal  of  a  law  or  statute 
by  the  petition  of  a  certain  percentage  of  voters. 

The  Referendum  means  a  vote  by  the  people  on  any 
law  passed  by  the  legislature,  or  on  a  law  proposed 
by  the  Initiative. 

The  two  are  referred  to  many  times  under  the  term 
Direct  Legislation,  or  sometimes  characterized  as 
"guarded  representative  government." 

As  a  thoughtful  writer  has  said:  "Direct  Legislation 
is  simply  an  application  of  the  fundamental  principles 
of  agency  recognized  in  every  court  of  law  in  the  civilized 
world,  viz:  That  an  agent  must  hold  himself  at  all  times 
subject  to  the  command  and  approval  of  his  principal. 
One  employing  an  agent  to  manage  his  business  ex- 
pects him  to  do  as  he  is  directed  in  its  conduct.  If  he 
is  not  willing  to  do  this  he  may  be  discharged  by  the 
principal.  The  employer  retains  the  power  of  instant 
veto,  not  having  to  wait  until  the  end  of  a  specified 
term,  during  which  his  property  might  be  mortgaged, 
sold  or  given  away." 

In  reply  to  the  question  —  What  is  the  Popular 
[242] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

Initiative?  in  an  able  Symposium  in  The  Arena*  the 
answer  is: 

"The  Popular  Initiative  is  the  right  of  a  certain 
percentage  of  the  voters,  usually  five  or  ten  per  cent,  to 
propose  a  law,  ordinance  or  constitutional  amendment 
for  action  by  the  legislature  or  decision  at  the  polls,  or 
both. 

"  Under  what  is  considered  by  many  as  the  preferable 
form,  the  measure  which  is  petitioned  by  the  requisite 
number  of  voters,  goes  to  the  proper  legislative  body, 
which  may  adopt  or  reject  it,  amend  it,  pass  a  substitute, 
or  refrain  from  any  action  in  reference  to  it.  If  the 
legislative  body  does  not  enact  the  measure  as  petitioned 
for,  or  if  it  takes  adverse  action  in  any  form,  the  said 
measure  together  with  the  amendment,  substitute  or 
other  action  of  the  legislative  body  goes  to  the  electorate 
for  final  decision  at  the  polls. 

"In  Oregon  a  somewhat  different  form  is  in  use. 
Here,  on  the  petition  of  eight  per  cent  of  the  voters  filed 
with  the  Secretary  of  State,  the  bill  or  constitutional 
amendment  included  in  the  petition  is  submitted  to 
the  people  at  the  next  general  election,  and  if  the  ma- 
jority of  those  voting  on  the  question  vote  Yes,  the 
Governor  announces  that  fact  by  proclamation,  and 

*  The  Arena  Magazine  has  taken  a  very  great  and  commendable 
interest  in  the  matter  of  Direct  Legislation.  Its  able  editor  has  had 
a  body  of  well-known  men,  also  interested  in  the  same  matter,  prepare 
for  the  June  number  (1906)  a  Symposium  on  the  Initiative,  and  for 
the  May  number  (1906)  a  like  Symposium  on  the  Referendum. 
Knowing  its  policies,  that  it  is  a  magazine  with  a  purpose,  and  that 
these  articles  have  been  prepared  for  the  purpose  of  the  greatest  pub- 
licity and  influence,  the  author  feels  free  to  quote  somewhat  fully 
from  them. 

[243] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

from  that  date  it  is  the  law  of  the  state  without  further 
question." 

In  answer  to  the  question,  as  to  why  the  Initiative 
is  needed  now  to  preserve  a  government  of,  for  and  by 
the  people  in  the  United  States?  the  answer  is:  "With- 
out the  Initiative  the  legislature  can  block  the  will  of 
the  people  by  refusing  to  act.  By  the  Referendum  the 
people  can  veto  legislative  action  when  it  goes  wrong. 
When  through  timidity,  conservatism,  corruption  or 
the  pressure  of  private  interest  in  any  form,  the  legis- 
lative body  neglects  or  refuses  to  pass  a  law  or  ordinance 
desired  by  the  public,  action  may  be  secured  through 
the  Initiative. 

"In  many  other  instances  during  recent  years  the 
people  have  expressed  their  desire  for  legislation  and 
their  representatives  have  made  anti-election  pledges, 
but  after  they  were  elected  they  came  under  the  in- 
fluence of  the  lobbyists  and  the  representatives  of  public- 
service  corporations  and  other  privileged  interests,  when 
they  have  been  false  to  their  trust  and  have  deliberately 
violated  their  pledges.  By  the  Popular  Initiative  the  people 
can  secure  needed  legislation  in  a  peaceful  and  orderly 
way,  in  spite  of  corrupt  influences  that  have  thwarted  the 
voters  and  defeated  the  interests  of  the  community." 

In  reply  then  to  the  question,  What  is  meant  by 
the  Referendum  ?  * 

"The  Referendum  means  the  referring  of  a  law  or 
ordinance  or  any  specific  question  to  the  people  for 
decision  at  the  polls.  A  vote  on  a  law  or  ordinance  may 

*  The  Arena  May,  1906. 

[244] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

be  taken,  not  for  the  purpose  of  decision,  but  merely  to 
secure  an  accurate  and  definite  expression  of  public 
opinion.  This  is  a  quasi-Referendum  or  public-opinion 
vote,  such  as  is  in  use  in  Illinois;  also  in  some  cities,  such 
as  Chicago  and  Detroit.  The  Referendum  also  means 
the  right  of  the  people  to  demand  the  submission  of 
an  enactment  or  measure  to  the  voters  for  decision; 
and  it  is  also  used  to  designate  a  statute  or  constitutional 
amendment  securing  this  right.  In  Switzerland,  during 
the  greater  portion  of  the  last  fifty  years,  the  Referen- 
dum has  been  a  part  of  the  constitutional  law  of  the 
republic.  When  a  law  is  passed,  if  a  certain  per  cent  of 
the  voters,  say  five,  eight  or  ten  per  cent,  within  sixty 
or  ninety  days  of  the  passage  of  the  law  petition  that 
the  people  have  the  right  to  pass  on  the  measure,  the 
enactment  is  held  in  abeyance  until  the  electorate  has 
voted  on  the  question." 

In  answer  to  the  question  —  Does  it  take  from  the 
people's  representatives  any  just  rights  that  belong  to 
them,  or  in  any  way  limit  their  legitimate  exercise  of 
power,  and  also  to  the  question  —  Would  legislators 
be  expected  to  oppose  the  Referendum  ?  The  reply  is : 

"  The  Referendum  takes  from  the  people's  representa- 
tives no  power  that  justly  belongs  to  them.  The  legis- 
lators are  the  agents  and  servants  of  the  people,  not 
their  masters.  No  true  representative  has  a  right  or  a 
desire  to  do  anything  his  principal  does  not  wish  to 
have  done,  or  to  refuse  to  do  anything  his  principal 
desires  to  have  done.  The  Referendum  merely  prevents 
the  representatives  from  becoming  mis  representatives 
[245] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

by  doing,  through  ignorance  or  dereliction,  what  the 
people  do  not  want,  or  neglecting  to  do  what  the  people 
do  want. 

"A  legislative  body  may  depart  from  the  people's 
will  because  it  does  not  know  what  the  people's  will  is 
or  because  the  pressure  of  private  or  personal  inter- 
est, contrary  to  the  public  interest,  overcomes  the 
legislators'  allegiance  to  the  people's  will.  In  either  case 
the  Referendum  is  the  remedy  and  the  only  complete 
remedy ;  the  only  means  whereby  real  government  by  the 
people  may  be  made  continuous  and  effective. 

"No  reason  exists  why  any  honest  legislator  should 
oppose  it.  But  legislators  who  put  the  interest  of  cor- 
porations or  other  private  interest  above  the  public 
interest  might  naturally  be  expected  to  oppose  the 
Referendum.  .  .  .  All  legislators  who  have  been 
corrupted  or  who  desire  to  be  corrupted  by  public- 
service  corporations  and  privileged  wealth  will  oppose 
the  Referendum.  All  legislators  who  are  looking  for 
graft  and  who  are  ready  to  sell  out  or  betray  their  con- 
stituents will  oppose  the  Referendum,  for  it  takes  from 
them  the  power  to  effectively  rob  the  people  and  sacrifice 
the  interests  of  the  public  for  private  gain  or  the  power 
and  place  that  corrupt  wealth  is  ever  ready  to  aid  its 
own  tools  in  securing.  These  false  or  misrepresentatives 
of  the  people  and  persons  who  do  not  believe  in  a  popular 
or  truly  democratic  government  are  opposed  to  the 
Referendum. " 

In  answer  to  the  question  as  to  why  it  is  imperatively 
demanded  to-day  ?  the  article  concludes : 
[246] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

"The  Referendum  is  imperatively  demanded  be- 
cause there  has  arisen  in  our  midst  in  recent  years  a 
powerful  plutocracy  composed  of  the  great  public- 
service  magnates,  the  trust  chieftains  and  other  princes 
of  privilege  who  have  succeeded  in  placing  in  positions 
of  leadership  political  bosses  that  are  susceptible  to  the 
influence  of  corrupt  wealth.  ...  In  this  manner  the 
government  has  become  largely  a  government  of 
privileged  wealth,  for  privileged  interests,  by  the  law- 
lessness of  the  privileged  ones  and  their  tools,  with  the 
result  that  the  people  are  continually  exploited  and 
corruption  is  steadily  spreading  throughout  all  the 
ramifications  of  political  life.  Against  these  evils  the 
Referendum  is  a  powerful  weapon.  It  brings  the  govern- 
ment back  to  the  people,  destroying  corruption  and  the 
mastership  of  the  many  by  the  few. 

"  The  Referendum  is  the  surest  and  swiftest  method 
of  checking  the  aggressions  of  the  great  corporate 
interests  that  have  captured  our  legislative  bodies, 
from  city  council  to  national  Congress.  It  is  the  funda- 
mental reform  before  the  American  people. " 

Here  is  a  simple,  an  effective  and  a  fully  demon- 
strated weapon  with  which  we  can  strike  the  necessary 
blows.  It  is  a  practicable  and  attainable  method  because 
it  cannot  be  made  an  issue  of  parties  and  politics.  It 
cannot  be  made  a  football  of  political  parties,  because 
it  is  something  in  connection  with  which  all  men  really 
agree.  It  is  a  principle  that  is  almost  axiomatic  in  its 
truth,  and  such  principles  are  not  subject  to  dispute. 
And  moreover,  so  far  as  dominant  parties  at  least  are 
[247] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

concerned,  no  Republican  who  believes  with  Lincoln, 
in  "  a  government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for 
the  people, "  will  dispute  its  wisdom  or  oppose  its  adop- 
tion and  use.  And  no  Democrat  who  believes  with 
Jefferson  that  "governments  are  Republican  only  in 
proportion  as  they  embody  the  will  of  the  people  aad 
execute  it, "  and  "  government  is  more  or  less  republican 
in  proportion  as  it  has  in  its  possession  more  or  less  of 
this  ingredient  of  the  direct  action  of  the  citizens." 
And  as  is  evident,  no  new  party  that  has  arisen  or  that 
may  arise,  working  for  the  people's  greater  interests 
than  they  are  able  to  be  persuaded  the  two  dominant 
parties  as  at  present  constituted  are  working  for,  will 
oppose  the  adoption  and  application  of  such  a  principle. 
Moreover,  there  is  no  leader  ( no  party  )  sufficiently 
foolish,  however  great  his  natural  desire  might  be  to  do 
otherwise,  as  to  array  himself  against  such  an  axiomatic- 
ally  sound  principle  of  truly  representative  government 
as  to  oppose  it,  when  its  advocates  once  get  it  squarely 
before  the  people  as  an  issue  to  be  acted  upon. 

It  seems  to  me  also  that  those  who  have  various 
desires  and  plans  for  the  betterment  of  governmental 
institutions,  however  ideal  their  conceptions  and  plans 
may  be,  can  and  will  unite  upon  such  a  common-sense 
and  practical  agency  through  which  effective  strides  can 
be  made  that  will  pave  the  way,  and  that  in  time  will 
lead    to  the  realization  of  such  hopes  and  such  plans. 

From  the  very  nature  of  the  principle  of  direct  or 
guarded  legislation  that  we  are  considering,  it  would 
almost  seem  that  specific  arguments  in  its  favour  were 
T248] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

unnecessary.  It  may  not  come  amiss,  however,  to  give 
briefly  an  enumeration  of  some  of  those  most  evident, 
or  a  sort  of  summary,  of  those  suggested  or  hinted  at 
in  the  foregoing  pages  of  this  chapter. 

First  and  foremost  as  must  be  evident  to  all  who 
have  more  or  less  of  an  intimate  knowledge  of  conditions 
as  they  actually  exist  among  us  to-day,  is  the  fact  that 
as  a  matter  of  pure  self-preservation  of  our  form  of 
government,  and  thereby  our  interests,  this  amending, 
this  completing  of  our  political  system  is  necessary. 
It  has  become  essential  to  the  proper  working  of  repre- 
sentative government.  Without  this  power  held  in  reserve 
by  the  people,  we  make  our  chosen  representatives  who 
would  otherwise  be  honourable  men,  intent  and  deter- 
mined upon  the  people's  interests,  the  prey  of  these 
same  nefarious  influences  for  all  time  to  come,  or,  on 
the  other  hand,  we  make  these  supposed  chosen  repre- 
sentatives whose  candidacy  is  managed  by  these  same 
interests  and  who  have  us  elect  these,  their  own  agents, 
for  them,  practically  masters  of  all  our  common  posses- 
sions, with  a  free  hand  to  betray  our  welfare  into  the 
hands  of  these  interests.  In  other  words,  Direct  Legisla- 
tion is  essential  to  representative  government  in  complex 
or  large  communities,  essential  to  the  realization  of 
anything  approaching  true  democracy.  "It  is  simply 
a  common-sense  application  of  the  principles  of  agency, 
affording  the  principal  his  proper  rights  of  veto,  con- 
struction, control  and  discharge.  Direct  Legislation 
means  control  of  your  servants  instead  of  letting  your 
servants  control  you." 

[249] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

From  this,  then,  follows  naturally  the  fact  that  bribery 
and  the  corrupt  and  venal  lobby  will,  to  a  great  extent, 
be  done  away  with,  or  they  will  be  so  diluted  that  the 
results  will  be  practically  the  same.  Where  $50,000 
would  buy  the  necessary  number  of  councilmen,  or 
legislators  to  buy  the  passage  of  a  measure,  the  briber, 
the  agent  of  the  "  interests"  could  not  with  this  amount 
or  any  amount  buy  50,000,  or  5,000,  or  any  large  number 
of  citizen  voters  to  vote  for  or  to  pass  a  measure  against 
their  own  interests.  Such  a  thing  is  scarcely  conceivable. 
The  "  interests"  then  are  not  going  to  pay  their  good 
money  to  men  who  cannot  "deliver  the  goods,"  and 
under  this  system  they  cannot  deliver  the  goods,  because 
they  would  not  have  the  final  say  in  regard  to  the 
matter  at  issue.  Rings  and  bosses  will  lose  their  hold 
and  their  business.  Franchise  grabs  and  blackmailing 
bills  will  in  time  disappear  because  in  case  of  the  former, 
the  people  will  be  able  to  see  to  it  that  their  properties 
are  retained  for  their  own  use  and  welfare,  and  in  case 
of  the  latter  the  people  can  always  be  appealed  to  with 
the  assurance  that  justice  will  be  compelled.  The 
following  paragraph  from  a  former  distinguished  Judge 
and  a  man  who  knew  well  the  methods  of  the  boss,  the 
machine, and  the  "  interests, "  is  most  appropriate  here: 

"The  fierce  commercialism  of  the  age,  which  has 
tended  to  enthrone  the  dollar  and  enslave  the  man,  has 
lowered  the  standards  and  has  covered  the  land  with 
corruption  until  corrupt  concentrations  of  money, 
wielded  by  unscrupulous  men,  have  acquired  such  a 
complete  control  of  the  governments,  national,  state 
[250] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

and  municipal,  that  the  people  are  almost  helpless. 
Laws  destructive  to  their  interests  are  passed  through 
bribery,  and  laws  necessary  for  their  protection  are 
kept  off  the  statute  book  by  bribery.  To  meet  this  new 
and  unfortunate  condition  it  is  necessary  that  the  people 
be  given  the  power  in  certain  emergencies  to  legislate 
direct,  either  by  a  popular  vote  to  put  specific  acts 
upon  the  statute  book,  or  to  declare  certain  specific 
acts  already  on  the  statute  book  to  be  null  and  void. 
This  would  destroy  the  business  of  bribery,  because  it 
would  render  the  fruits  of  bribery  worthless.  No  corpo- 
ration would  buy  a  legislature  or  a  city  council  if  the 
acts  of  that  legislature  or  council  could  be  nullified  by 
the  people. 

"This  system  has  worked  marvellously  well  where 
it  has  been  tried.  .  .  .  It  is  not  a  question  to  speculate 
about.  It  is  not  a  chimerical  idea.  It  is  simply  a  question 
of  self-preservation. " 

And  the  following  from  Governor  Folk  when  the 
people  of  Missouri  were  finally  aroused  and  determined 
to  free  themselves  from  most  debasing  and  well-nigh 
intolerable  conditions,  is  more  than  suggestive. 

"Vote  for  the  Initiative  and  Referendum,  a  system 
that  will  be  the  death  blow  to  corruption,  and  the  only 
true  remedy  for  bribery.  Why  elect  me  unless  I  am  given 
the  proper  tools  ?  " 

While  on  the  one  hand  the  application  of  the  Initia- 
tive and  Referendum  *  would  have  a  very  telling  effect 

*  Ellweed  Pomeroy,  President  of  the  National  Direct  Legislation 
League,  is  one  of  the  highest  authorities  in  the  country  on  this  sub- 
ject.    He  has  made  an  exhaustive  study  of  its  workings  in  the  Swiss 

[251] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

upon  the  party  boss  and  the  machine,  upon  the  star 
chamber,  "arranging"  methods  through  which  almost 
every  phase  of  legislation  must  pass,  it  would  also 
on  the  other  hand  call  into  public  life  in  many  cases  a 
higher  grade  of  men,  for  the  higher  the  plane  politics 
are  upon,  the  better  the  men  that  are  naturally  attracted 
to  it.  This  is  the  general  rule ;  the  exception  occurs  in  case 
of  the  occasional  brave  and  earnest  man  who  sees  the 
well-nigh  intolerable  conditions  in  political  affairs  around 
him,  and  who  without  thought  of  self  and  without  count- 
ing the  cost,  sets  about  in  an  endeavour  to  end  them. 

It  will  promote  thought  and  discussion  and  a  greater 
intelligence  on  the  part  of  all  people  in  connection 
with  all  public  measures.  As  it  is,  the  average  citizen, 
good  citizen  if  you  please,  has  no  part  in  the  dis- 
cussion nor  in  the  forming  of  conclusions  in  legis- 
lative matters  ;  he  has  no  method  except  in  some 
cumbersome  and  roundabout   and  generally  ineffective 

government,  and  has  been  a  most  indefatigable  worker  for  its  adop- 
tion here.  He  has  during  the  past  ten  years  or  so  discussed  its  merits 
before  popular  gatherings  in  many  different  states,  before  schools  and 
colleges  and  before  many  educational  and  civic  bodies ;  and  it  is 
perhaps  no  more  than  just  to  say  at  no  small  loss  to  himself,  for  he  is 
a  business  man  and  for  most  business  men  their  time  is  money.  He 
has  at  no  period  been  more  deeply  interested  in  the  movement  for 
which  he  has  stood  than  he  is  to-day. 

In  a  biographical  sketch  of  him  by  the  editor  of  one  of  our  current 
exchanges,  the  writer  says  :  "  He  belongs  to  a  group  of  thoughtful 
young  Americans  and  to  a  band  of  thoughtful  workers  who  reflect  the 
spirit  of  altruism,  or  co-operation  and  brotherhood,  as  opposed  to  the 
spirit  of  commercialism,  greed,  and  egoism  that  is  struggling  to  estab- 
lish an  oligarchy  or  plutocracy  under  the  mantle  of  republican  institu- 
tions, as  the  di  Medici  family  subverted  free  institutions  and 
established  a  despotism  under  the  garb  of  a  republic  in  Florence  dur- 
ing the  Renaissance." 

His  address  is  Ellweed  Pomeroy,  A.M.,  East  Orange,  N.  J. 

[252] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

way  of  making  his  desires  or  his  protests  regarding 
matters  of  legislation  known.  With  this  simple 
and  effective  direct  instrument  in  the  hands  of 
good  citizens,  their  interest  in  good  government 
and  in  all  measures  of  public  concern  and  welfare 
would  revive,  and  by  reason  of  the  healthy  stimulation 
it  would  receive,  it  would  give  birth  to  a  new  type  of 
patriotism  that  would  redeem  and  carry  our  institu- 
tions long  strides  towards  what  they  are  yet  to  be.  And 
its  influence  upon  the  youth  of  the  land,  as  they  in  turn 
come  into  the  field  of  action,  it  is  easy  to  forsee. 

It  would  strengthen  our  respect  for  law,  instead  of 
our  growing  disrespect  for  it,  because  then  its  enact- 
ment would  emanate  "from  the  mind,  the  conscience, 
the  abiding  will  of  the  sovereign  people,"  instead  of 
legislators,  "some  of  whom,"  says  an  editorial  in  the 
New  York  Independent,  "  are  wise  men,  some  of  whom 
are  good  men,  many  of  whom  are  fools,  and  not  a  few 
of   whom   are   scoundrels." 

It  will  separate  issues  from  men,  thereby  fostering 
intelligent  discussion  and  keeping  real  issues  fairly 
before  the  people.  As  important  a  feature  as  any  in 
its  favour  is  the  fact  that  it  is  the  remedy,  the  reform, 
the  amending,  the  completing  of  our  governmental 
institutions  along  the  lines  of  least  resistance,  which  is 
a  most  important  feature  in  connection  with  practical 
politics  and  in  connection  with  political  growth  and 
continual   higher   political   attainment. 

We  have  considered,  though  in  very  brief  form,  the 
reasons  or  arguments  in  favour  of  direct  or  guarded 
[253] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

legislation.  What  are  the  arguments  against  it  ?  I  have 
never  seen  more  than  two  that  are  really  worthy  of  con- 
sideration. One  is,  that  the  people  will  make  mistakes. 
The  other  is  that  they  will  abuse  this  power. 

As  to  the  former,  we  will  readily  grant  the  truth  of 
the  assertion.  The  people  will  make  occasional  mis- 
takes, and  they  will  be  apt  to  make  more  mistakes  at 
first  than  they  will  later  on  with  more  experience  and 
with  such  increased  intelligence  in  connection  with 
matters  of  public  policy  as  this  educative  process  will 
bring  about.  That  no  system  is  wholly  perfect  will  be 
most  readily  admitted  by  all.  But  the  real,  the  vital 
question  is,  will  the  people  make  as  many  mistakes 
working  directly  for  their  own  Interests,  as  the  mis- 
takes made  —  and  that  mistakes  are  sometimes  made 
by  the  people's  representatives  will  be  admitted  and 
freely  perhaps  by  all  —  by  these  representatives, 
combined  with  the  frightful  wrongs  and  injustices 
that  are  frequently  perpetrated  under  our  present 
irresponsible  representative  system,  where  bribery 
and  graft  and  public  debauchery  have  become  so  wide- 
spread and  so  general  on  account  of  this  weakness  in 
our  system,  as  to  make  us  the  laughing  stock  of  practi- 
cally every  other  civilized  country  in  the  world,  Russia 
possibly  excepted.  The  people  know  their  own  desires 
and  aims  and  their  own  business  better  than  it  can  be 
known  by  any  number  of  representatives,  even  though 
they  might  be  uniformly  wise  and  honest. 

The  man  who  is  afraid  to  trust  the  people  when  it 
comes  to  attending  to  their  own  affairs,  has  something 
[254] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

radically  wrong  in  his  mental  make-up,  or  has  some- 
thing under  cover  that  will  not  stand  the  scrutiny  of 
honest  and  honourable  men.  Watch  him. 

We  must,  moreover,  get  over  the  idea  that  matters 
of  government  are  deep  and  intricate  and  complex 
matters.  When  it  comes  to  attending  to  their  own  affairs 
on  the  part  of  the  people,  there  is  nothing  intricate  or 
complex,  or  there  is  nothing  as  intricate  and  complex 
as  would  at  first  thought  seem.  But  things  are  made 
or  are  made  to  seem,  intricate  or  complex,  by  the  pro- 
fessional politician,  by  the  paid  agents,  and  at  times  the 
paid  attorneys  of  thieving  or  stock  juggling  corpora- 
tions or  privilege  seeking  or  law  defying  corporations, 
combines  and  agencies  of  the  various  types  that  are 
continually  at  work. 

So  much  then  for  the  argument  that  the  people  will 
make  mistakes. 

As  to  the  other  argument  above  noted  —  that  the 
people  will  abuse  this  power,  the  testimony  in  an  over- 
whelming abundance  is,  that  it  is  entirely  unfounded, 
that  it  has  no  basis  in  actually  demonstrated  fact.  This 
argument  that  the  people  will  abuse  this  power  which 
is  not  borne  out  by  the  facts,  but  which  has  on  the 
contrary  been  wholly  disproved  by  such  facts  as  we 
have  up  to  the  present  time,  brings  us  to  the  enuncia- 
tion of  one  of  the  strongest  possible  reasons  for  the 
Initiative  and  Referendum,  namely,  that  the  very  fact 
of  the  people  having  this  power  reserved  in  their 
own  hands  and  without  having  to  have  recourse 
to  it  at  all,  prevents  in  many  cases,  questionable 
[255] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

or  baneful  legislation,  and  on  the  other  hand  compels 
legislation  that  would  not  many  times  be  enacted  were 
it  not  that  the  people  hold  this  compelling  power.  The 
holding  of  this  power  indicates,  and  makes  all  too 
plainly  evident  to  the  people's  representatives  and  to 
those  who  would  debauch  and  buy  them,  that  the 
people  hold  in  their  own  hands  the  final  power,  and 
their  legislators  cannot  be  bought  successfully  without 
the  buying  of  the  people,  which  on  the  very  face  of  it 
is  impossible. 

Direct  Legislation  amendments  have  already  be- 
come a  part  of  the  constitutions  of  several  of  our  pro- 
gressive newer  western  states.  One  state  has  had  the 
Referendum  as  a  direct  constitutional  amendment 
since  1898.  It  has  never  yet,  however,  been  driven  to 
the  necessity  of  making  use  of  it.  "  It  remains,  just  the 
same,  a '  flaming  sword  '  in  the  hands  of  the  people,  con- 
stantly reminding  the  unscrupulous  lobby  and  the 
designing  '  boss '  that  there  is  a  reserve  power  which, 
when  the  occasion  demands,  can  and  will  be  brought 
into  requisition."  Where  the  proposal  of  Direct  Legisla- 
tion has  been  brought  squarely  before  the  people  to 
receive  their  sanction  or  their  veto,  it  has  in  almost 
every  case  been  adopted  by  an  overwhelming  vote. 
It  was  adopted  in  one  state  by  a  vote  of  over  five  to  one. 
It  has  been  made  part  of  the  charter  law  already  in  a 
few  cities,  and  in  every  case  so  far  —  state  and  munici- 
pal —  it  has  given  good  results ;  in  many  cases  results 
that  could  not  possibly  be  accomplished  in  any  other 
way,  or  by  any  other  at  present  known  way. 
T256] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

A  Direct  Legislation  Amendment  went  before  the 
people  of  the  State  of  Oregon  at  the  general  election  of 
1902,  and  was  adopted  by  an  overwhelming  majority. 
This  was  just  ten  years  from  the  time  agitation  for  it 
was  first  begun.  The  essence  of  this  new  provision  may 
be  said  to  be  as  follows,  contained  in  the  opening  sen- 
tence of  Article  IV,  Section  I :  "  The  legislative  authority 
of  the  State  shall  be  vested  in  a  Legislative  Assembly, 
consisting  of  a  Senate  and  a  House  of  Representatives, 
but  the  people  reserve  to  themselves  power  to  propose 
laws  and  amendments  to  the  constitution,  and  to  enact 
or  reject  the  same  at  the  polls,  independent  of  the 
Legislative  Assembly,  and  also  reserve  at  their  option 
the  power  to  approve  or  reject  at  the  polls  any  act  of  the 
Legislative  Assembly."  As  to  the  numbers  required  to 
make  effective  this  power  held  in  reserve  by  the  people, 
eight  per  cent  of  the  legal  voters  of  the  State  have  the 
power  to  propose  or  initiate  laws,  constitutional  amend- 
ments, etc.,  and  five  per  cent  may  demand  a  referendum 
on  any  act  or  acts  passed  by  the  Legislature  when  their 
petitions  are  filed  within  ninety  days  after  the  adjourn- 
ment of  the  Session  during  which  they  were  enacted. 

During  even  the  comparatively  short  time  that  the 
people  of  the  State  of  Oregon  have  had  this  amendment 
incorporated  into  their  constitution  as  has  been  well 
said,  "  it  has  proved  a  field  of  dragons  teeth  to  the  Oregon 
machine  politician.  "  Through  the  possession  of  this 
they  have  already  secured  that  now  essential  measure 
for  political  decency  and  political  progress,  a  Direct 
Primary  Election  Law,  than  which  there  is  nothing 
[257] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

more  effective  to  put  political  bosses  and  machine 
politicians  out  of  business.  In  a  late  number  of  The 
Review  of  Reviews  is  a  very  suggestive  article  by  a 
resident  of  the  State  of  Oregon,  giving  a  review  of  the 
methods  used  to  bring  this  amendment  about  and 
some  of  the  results  already  evident.*  The  following 
brief  paragraphs  are  taken  from  it: 

"The  initiative  and  referendum  amendment  was  not 
an  end  in  itself,  but  a  means  to  an  end.  It  provided,  first 
of  all,  a  way  by  which  the  constitution  could  be  amended 
in  any  particular  within  a  reasonable  time  by  the  people 
acting  in  their  legislative  capacity.  Those  who  were 
responsible  for  bringing  forward  the  amendment  had 
in  mind  several  important  reforms  whose  enactment  into 
law  they  believed  would  be  made  possible  only  by  this 
means. 

"  One  of  the  reforms  for  which  the  amendment  was 
intended  to  prepare  the  way  was  a  primary-election 
system  of  nominating  State,  county,  and  local  officers. 
So  strong  was  the  demand  for  this  reform  that  in  the 
campaign  of  1902  both  of  the  leading  political  parties 
pledged  themselves  to  secure  its  enactment  by  the  Legis- 
lature. The  question  of  the  popular  election  of  United 
States  Senators  was  also  a  most  practical  one  in  Oregon, 
in  view  of  the  various  legislative  "  hold-ups  "  chargeable 
to  the  old  constitutional  method  of  choosing  Senators, 
and  as  early  as  1901  a  bill  was  passed  providing  for  a 
popular  vote  for  United  States  Senator.  The  People's 

*  Oregon  as  a  "  Political  Experiment  Station,  "  by  Joseph  Shafer, 
The  Review  0}  Reviews,  August,  1906. 

[258] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

Power  League,  however,  which  had  fathered  the  initia- 
tive and  referendum,  resolved  upon  the  enactment  of 
a  thoroughgoing  primary  law  that  should  include,  as 
an  organic  feature,  the  nomination  and  election  of 
Senatorial  candidates.  So  a  bill  was  drawn  up  and 
presented  to  the  people  at  the  general  election  in  June, 
1904,  which  was  passed  by  a  great  majority. 

"  On  the  20th  day  of  April,  1906,  the  primary  law  was 
employed  for  the  first  time  in  nominating  candidates 
to  be  voted  on  at  the  regular  election  in  June,  and  it  is 
not  too  much  to  say  that  by  its  means  political  methods 
in  Oregon  have  been  revolutionized.  To  a  remarkable 
extent,  old  political  leaders  who  had  shown  undue 
devotion  to  private  or  corporation  interests  were  elimi- 
nated, while  the  great  parties  vied  with  each  other  in  the 
effort  to  bring  out  candidates  whom  the  public  could 
trust. 

"The  way  in  which  this  formidable  list  of  subjects 
was  dealt  with  is  highly  creditable  to  the  Oregon  elector- 
ate. .  .  .  In  no  case  was  there  indifference;  every- 
thing points  to  the  fact  that  the  ordinary  voter  studied 
the  questions  proposed,  made  up  his  mind  before  going 
to  the  polls,  and  voted  independently  on  all  the  proposi- 
tions placed  before  him.  The  measures  have  provoked 
a  vast  deal  of  discussion;  indeed,  it  may  be  said  that  for 
a  number  of  months  past  the  people  of  Oregon  have  all 
been  more  or  less  actively  engaged  in  the  business  of 
legislation.  The  educational  benefits  incident  to  the 
system  are  bound  to  be  very  important.  With  a  change 
in  the  initiative  law  perfecting  the  method  of  distributing 
[259] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

copies  of  proposed  measures  to  the  voters,  there  is  no 
reason  why  every  farmers'  club,  labour  union,  and 
lyceum  in  the  State  cannot  become  in  effect  a  miniature 
legislative  assembly.  In  this  way  the  interests  of  all 
sections  and  all  classes  of  the  people  are  bound  to  receive 
attention;  measures  will  be  proposed  for  submission  to 
the  local  representatives  and  others  to  go  before  the 
people  at  the  general  elections. 

"  But,  with  all  this  political  activity,  there  is  no  evidence 
of  dangerously  radical  tendencies.  The  people  want 
to  make  their  government  as  perfect  as  possible,  but 
are  not  disposed  to  hurry  the  process  unduly.  The  recent 
election,  indeed,  revealed  in  a  striking  manner  their 
conservative  disposition. 

"  In  conclusion,  we  remark  among  the  Oregon  people 
a  genuine  joy  at  the  discovery  of  their  political  capabili- 
ies.  Representative  government  is  good,  but  there  is 
an  exhilaration  in  direct  participation  in  law-making, 
the  interest  is  sharpened,  the  intelligence  is  quickened 
moral  susceptibilities  are  aroused.  The  Oregon  people 
are  convinced  that  in  the  double  form  of  government, 
partly  representative  and  partly  direct,  they  have  dis- 
covered the  true  solution  of  the  problem  of  self-govern- 
ment in  our  American  States. " 

Another  agency  that  is  going  to  tell  strongly  in  the 
redemption  of  our  present  political  methods  is,  indepen- 
dence in  party  action.  The  time  has  about  passed  when 
a  sort  of  blind,  senseless,  fanatical  allegiance  to  party 
is  going  to  dominate  men  as  it  has  in  the  past.  Thought- 
ful men  everywhere  are  beginning  to  realize  the  stupid 
[260] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

and  more,  the  moral  criminality,  of  such  allegiance. 
One  reason  that  the  low  party  machines,  as  well  as  those 
of  the  higher  grade,  have  been  able  to  be  built  up  with 
all  their  damnable  characteristics,  is  that  good  men  and 
thoughtful  men  and  patriotic  men  have  not  in  sufficient 
numbers  rebuked  their  party  managers  and  defeated 
them  in  their  questionable  and  dishonourable  doings, 
and  have  not  rebuked  the  selection  of  questionable  or 
venal  or  notoriously  unfit  men  by  defeating  them  at  the 
polls,  thereby  pushing  home  a  lesson  to  the  party  boss 
or  party  managers  that  would  be  of  telling  effect,  that 
would  be  of  real  service  to  the  party.  And  when  a 
sufficiently  large  number  of  men  make  it  clearly  under- 
stood that  they  will  give  unqualified  support  to  that 
party  which  in  every  case  puts  up  the  best  man  for 
public  office,  and  which  stands  honestly  and  squarely 
for  measures  of  the  best  public  policy,  then  we  will  see 
a  great  difference  in  the  standards  of  men  nominated 
for  public  office,  and  in  the  methods  of  political  party 
management. 

"  In  our  country  we  fool  the  people  with  some  pretend- 
ed differences  between  one  party  called  the  Republican 
and  another  called  the  Democratic."  So  says  an  Ameri- 
can writer  in  dealing  with  the  agencies  that  have  made 
the  governments  of  Australia  and  New  Zealand  so 
truly  representative  of  the  people's  welfare. 

This  cry  to  loyalty  to  party  is  generally  an  emanation 
from  some  old  hack  of  a  party  boss  many  times  dis- 
solute and  dishonest  and  criminal,  both  at  heart  and 
in  practice  —  an  emanation,  directly  from  him,  or 
[261  ] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

through  some  of  his  equally  dissolute  lieutenants,  to 
hoodwink  and  to  hold  the  members  to  the  party  under 
his  or  their  joint  domination,  in  order  that  at  the  right 
time  they  may  deliver  the  goods  —  the  people's  in- 
terests —  to  those  with  whom  they  are  in  league.  That 
the  people  have  not  seen  through  this  method  and  have 
not  recognized  this  fact  in  such  larger  numbers  long 
before  this,  is  a  most  astounding  fact.  But  eyes  are  now 
open,  and  minds  are  now  alert  and  discriminating, 
and  the  death  knell  of  those  parasites  upon  the  body 
politic,  of  these  scorpions  in  their  deadly  sting,  and  the 
methods  of  the  moneyed  interests  in  their  dealings  with 
them,  are  being  understood  more  clearly  every  day  and 
every   month 

Says  a  writer  in  The  Springfield  Republican:  "In- 
dependent voters,  after  all,  are  every  year  more  numer- 
ous in  this  country.  In  Massachusetts  and  Rhode 
Island  there  were  some  50,000  men  who,  after  voting 
for  a  Republican  candidate  for  president,  were  capable 
of  voting  for  a  Democratic  candidate  for  governor.  In 
Minnesota  there  were  at  least  50,000  more  of  the  same 
sort,  and  they  did  business  on  election  day.  It  is  dis- 
crimination of  this  sort  that  will  make  the  republic 
live  forever,  if  anything  will." 

Let  us  see  how  it  sometimes  works  as  it  now  exists. 
An  election  is  approaching  and  nominations  for  certain 
offices  are  to  be  made.  The  directing  officers  or  the 
agents  of  certain  leading  public  service  corporations, 
etc.,  want  always  to  be  on  the  safe  side  and  want  to  be 
sure  that  "safe,  sane,  and  conservative"  men  are 
[262] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

nominated.  At  the  appointed  time  and  place  a  con- 
ference is  held  between  them  and  the  party  boss  or  the 
party  managers,  —  the  party  that  is  dominant  or  that 
seems  the  more  likely  to  carry  the  particular  election. 
Then  if  there  is  doubt  in  regard  to  this,  the  party  boss 
or  the  party  managers  of  both  parties  are  "seen,"  and 
arranged  with.  The  "  interests  "  care  no  more  whether 
the  men  to  be  elected  are  members  of  one  party  or 
members  of  another  party  than  they  care  whether 
they  belong  to  one  or  another  religious  denomination. 

If  the  business  interests  that  are  liable  to  be  affected 
have  nothing  of  special  importance  before  them  just 
then,  they  in  turn  are  "  seen  "  by  the  party  boss  or  party 
managers  to  ascertain  if  the  candidates  about  to  be 
selected  are  agreeable  to  them,  in  order  that  the 
party  have  their  support,  etc.,  etc.,  and  the  ticket  is 
made  accordingly.  If  it  is  a  locality  where  this  type  of 
machine  politics  has  been  in  operation  for  some  time 
and  where  the  party  managers  are  of  the  ordinarily 
low  type  and  have  a  sufficiently  certain  hold  on  affairs, 
then  men  of  like  character  are  the  natural  nominees, 
those  whose  subserviency  is  a  matter  not  open  to 
question.  If  conditions  are  different,  then  a  very  re- 
spectable type  of  man,  but  always  "safe,  sane,  and 
conservative,"  such  as  we  find  for  some  reason  watching 
out  most  carefully  for  the  "  interests  "  business  for  them, 
is  the  natural  type  of  candidate.  But  whichever  the 
type  selected  according  to  the  exigencies  of  the  case, 
as  the  campaign  advances  the  "  loyalty  to  party "  cry 
is  continually  to  be  heard  through  the  various  agencies 
[263] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

and  methods  employed  and  with  which  we  are  now 
so  familiar.  Then  on  election  day  we  march  up  to  the 
polls  to  be  plucked  by  this  machine  management  that 
will  sell  us  and  our  interests  out  at  the  first  opportunity, 
or  by  this  contemptible  combination  of  machine  politics 
with  the  "  interests."  I  do  not  say  this  is  true  in  every 
case.  In  many  of  our  smaller  towns  and  villages  there 
may  be  simply  traces  of  this,  in  some  cases  none  at  all. 
But  wherever  it  is  of  sufficient  importance  you  may 
be  sure  that  matters  are  "taken  care  of."  Moreover, 
there  is  not  a  city  of  any  considerable  size  in  the  country, 
and  there  is  not  a  state  where  this  has  not  been,  or  is 
not  now  going  on.  This  is  the  combination  that  has 
brought  the  corruption  and  bribery  and  debauchery 
into  politics  that  is  now  undermining  our  very  institu- 
tions of  government. 

And  what  are  we  going  to  do  about  it  ?  I'll  tell  you 
what  we  are  going  to  do  about  it.  We  are  going  to  change 
our  method  of  nominations,  and  change  it  in  such  a  way, 
that  the  boss,  the  machine,  in  their  combination  with 
the  "  interests "  are  going  to  have  their  feet  knocked 
from  under  them.  A  system  of  direct  nominations  by 
the  people  whereby  they  can  ballot  for  their  own  candi- 
dates after  much  the  same  plan  as  they  now  ballot 
at  regular  elections,  will  soon  enable  us  to  select  our 
own  candidates  for  public  office,  thus  making  it  harder 
for  the  combinations  to  be  made  whereby  we  are  con- 
tinually being  sold  out,  sometimes  so  openly  and  so 
brazenly,  or  in  cases  where  it  is  not  this,  then  making 
it  harder  for  combines  and  trusts  and  public  service 
[204] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

corporations  to  secure  such  favouring  legislation  as  en- 
ables them  to  become  monopolies,  stifling  all  honest  com- 
petition, ruining  thousands  of  businesses,  moving  up  and 
keeping  up  prices  of  necessities  to  suit  their  own  ad- 
vantage, and  always  in  advance  of  whatever  advance 
comes  in  wages  to  the  wage-earner,  the  professional 
man,  and  to  all  outside  the  combination. 

The  caucus  and  the  nominating  convention  as  it  has 
become  to-day,  is  the  starting  point  of  all  that  is  corrupt 
and  venal  and  vile  in  our  American  politics. 

It  is  the  stronghold  of  the  boss  and  with  this  in  his 
possession  he  controls  elections  and  legislation,  spreads 
corruption  as  suits  his  ends,  and  makes  merchandise  of 
government.  Through  it  he  has  well-nigh  destroyed 
popular  rule,  and  through  him  the  people  have  at  each 
election,  with  an  occasional  exception  here  and  there, 
been  given  merely  the  choice  of  two  evils.  It  is  only 
through  the  destruction  of  the  present  system  that  the 
power  of  the  boss  and  his  machine  can  be  destroyed, 
for  it  is  through  it  that  he  thrives  and  carries  on  his 
impudent  business. 

Several  states  have  already  enacted  tentative,  or 
more  or  less  effective,  primary  election  laws,  not  perfect, 
but  being  amended  and  made  better  as  each  opportunity 
for  betterment  manifests  itself.  Minnesota,  Wisconsin, 
and  Illinois  are  among  these  states.  As  they  have  so  far 
worked  out  the  following  may  be  said  to  contain  the 
chief  details: 

"Hold  the  primaries  of  all  parties  on  the  same  day, 
under  the  control  of  the  regular  election  officials.  Do 
[265] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
all  the  voting  at  primaries  from  the  regular  registration 
lists.  Let  candidates  for  office  get  their  names  on  the 
primary  ballots  by  petition  only  —  five  or  ten  per  cent 
of  the  voters  in  the  district  of  the  office-seeker  belonging 
to  his  party.  Let  each  man  vote  for  the  ticket  he  chooses, 
and  let  him  vote  for  but  one  ticket.  Require  each  candi- 
date to  set  forth  in  his  petition  for  a  place  on  the  primary 
ballot  his  policy  as  to  the  office  he  expects  to  fill  and  as 
to  no  other  office.  Let  the  candidate  of  each  party  who 
receives  a  plurality  of  the  votes  cast  by  his  party  in  the 
primary  for  the  position  which  he  seeks,  be  the  party 
nominee  for  this  position.  As  a  matter  of  right,  let  his 
name  go  on  the  official  ballots  for  the  general  election.  " 
With  such  a  system  it  is  evident  that  no  party  boss 
could  dictate  nominations,  and  without  this  power 
he  could  control  neither  patronage  nor  subsequent 
legislative  action,  for  he  is  able  to  dictate  these  solely 
through  the  dependence  of  candidates  upon  him. 
Newly  elected  officers  could  then  look  to  the  people  for 
their  instructions  and  not  be  compelled  to  receive  their 
directions  from  the  party  boss  and  his  machine.  And  so 
far  as  the  voters  are  concerned,  "  each  voter  would  have 
set  up  before  him  in  every  primary  election,  and  later 
at  the  general  election,  definite,  intelligent  statements 
as  to  the  policies  which  would  be  carried  out  in  this  or 
that  office  by  the  candidates  who  sought  his  suffrage. 
National,  state  and  local  issues  would  not  be  mixed 
together.  If  such  a  system  were  in  force  no  people  would 
have  to  submit  to  the  shame  of  accepting  the  marionette 
of  one  boss  or  another.  No  machine  could  fatten  on 
[266] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

officially  protected  vice,  or  on  the  sale  of  legislation. 
The  government  would  be  as  good  as  the  people,  no 
better,  no  worse. ' ' 

Here  then  is  a  simple,  a  practical,  and  an  effective  way 
whereby  we  can  battle  with,  undermine  and  wrest  the 
control  of  government  from  this  combination  that  has 
been  steadily  and  systematically  perverting  all  our  forms 
of  government  for  years. 

Direct  Nominations  by  the  people,  and  direct  legisla- 
tion by  the  people  through  the  Initiative  and  Referen- 
dum will  give  us  back  our  government. 

They  are  not  ends,  merely  means  of  ends.  But  they 
are  the  weapons,  the  strategic  weapons,  if  you  please, 
that  must  be  gained  in  order  to  fight  successfully  the 
great  battles  that  are  now  on,  for  almost  before  we  have 
realized  it  the  revolution  has  already  begun. 

As  it  is,  fighting  with  these  forces  of  mammon  and 
corruption,  or  this  combination  between  the  two,  it  is 
like  an  army,  a  large  army,  if  you  please,  moving  out 
with  wooden  swords  and  wooden  guns  against  oppos- 
ing forces,  much  smaller  it  is  true  and  but  a  small 
fraction  in  numerical  strength  when  compared  to  the 
greater  army,  but  entrenched  behind  fortresses  of  great 
strength  and  of  systematic  building  and  every  individual 
armed  with  the  most  up-to-date  patterns  of  machine 
guns,  with  which  the  entire  oncoming  army  can  be 
mowed  down  before  it  can  get  even  to  their  entrench- 
ments. We  must  have  these  weapons  or  lose  in  the  great 
fight.  How  shall  we  secure  them  ?  for  they  constitute 
the  key  to  the  whole  situation.  Clearly  they  will  not 
[267] 


In  the  Fire  oj  the  Heart 

come  to  us  through  the  initiative  action  of  any  political 
party  as  such,  that  is  until  forced  by  the  people.  We 
will  secure  these  measures,  these  weapons,  through  the 
action  of  groups  of  determined  men  throughout  all  our 
states,  who  will  band  themselves  together  in  Leagues, 
known  as  Direct  Nomination,  Direct  Legislation, 
People's  Power  Leagues,  or  whatever  name  or  names 
they  may  see  fit  to  work  under.  They  will  formulate 
the  issues,  with  no  small  expense  both  as  to  time 
and  as  to  means,  they  will  carry  on  an  educational 
campaign,  and  later,  reinforced  by  the  support  of  the 
people,  they  will  take  their  bills  to  the  various  legislatures. 
They  will  compel  whatever  members  may  choose  or 
whatever  members  may  dare  to  oppose  them  to  show 
their  colors,  that  the  people  may  know  who  their  natural 
enemies,  their  betrayers  are.  If  then  a  sufficient  number 
of  members  is  bought  off  by  the  combination  in  the 
first  meeting  of  the  Legislature  before  which  their  bills 
are  brought,  they  will  profit  by  the  knowledge  of  the 
methods  employed  to  defeat  them,  they  will  go  back  to 
their  campaigns  and  to  the  people  with  a  renewed 
energy  until  the  voice  of  the  people  will  speak  in  such 
uncertain  tones  that  even  the  lowest  of  the  combination 
tools  will  not  dare  do  anything  but  listen.  Thus  rein- 
forced they  will  go  back  to  the  next  meeting  of  the 
Legislature  into  which  they  have  in  the  meantime  put 
men  who  will  fight  from  within,  and  after  another  hard 
fight,  or  possibly  even  another  in  some  cases,  these 
weapons  will  be  secured  and  put  into  the  hands  of  the 
people. 

[268  J 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

We  can  spend  years  in  desultory  warfare  with  in- 
effective or  inadequate  weapons.  With  these  weapons 
we  can  make  an  effective,  a  telling,  and  a  conquering 
fight,  taking  one  after  another  the  citadels  of  the  en- 
trenched interests  opposed  to  the  public  and  the  people's 
welfare,  the  citadels  of  monopoly  and  of  corporation 
greed,  all  of  them  resulting  from  the  combination  of 
the  "  interests  "  with  the  political  boss  and  the  political 
machine.  With  these  weapons  we  will  be  moving  and 
continually  moving,  not  merely  marking  time.  With 
power  in  our  own  hands  through  the  possession  of  these 
weapons,  instead  of  a  much  talked  of  and  boasted 
power  that  has  become  merely  an  empty  shell,  while 
the  real  power  is  in  the  hands  of  the  almost  insignifi- 
cantly small  numbers  who  are  using  it  for  their  own 
purposes,  we  will  stand  as  a  body  of  freemen  holding 
the  franchise  in  their  own  hands,  should  stand. 

Now  here  is  a  programme,  simple  and  effective  it  seems 
to  me,  that  we  can  begin  at  once  to  put  into  operation 
to  bring  to  an  end  this  intolerable  situation  that  has 
gradually  come  about  among  us.  If  anyone  has  a 
better,  simpler,  more  effective  programme,  I  am  willing 
to  yield  at  every  point  where  its  really  superior  features 
can  be  established.  I  do  not  mean  for  some  ideal  state 
in  the  bye  and  bye,  but  I  mean  as  a  force  to  set  into 
operation  in  a  practical  and  telling  way  now,  that  we 
may  be  up  and  doing  those  things  that  will  lead  to  the 
ideal  state  that  will  be  established  by  our  doing  now, 
to-day,  what  there  is  to  do,  and  to-morrow  the  same, 
and  to-morrow.  I  am  an  "opportunist"  in  that  I  be- 
[269] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

lieve  that  the  way  to  attain  is  to  take  hold  with  the 
clearest  insight  we  can  command,  of  the  thing  that  needs 
to  be  done  and  that  can  be  done  to-day,  letting  that 
lead  to  the  next  thing  that  will  in  turn  develop  itself 
from  it,  and  this  into  the  next,  until  in  time  the  foreseen 
goal  is  reached.  To  see  an  ideal  state,  and  to  sit  and  do 
nothing  until  that  ideal  state  is  developed  and  we  are 
in  it,  or  because  it  cannot  be  attained  all  at  once,  is 
entirely  contrary  to  all  natural  law  of  which  we  so  far 
at  least,  have  any  tangible  knowledge. 

With  these  agencies  of  political  power  in  our  hands 
we  will  then  be  in  a  position  to  move  along  the  lines 
of  political  and  economic  advancement  untrammelled. 
We  can  then  take  each  step  and  secure  each  change  for 
political  and  economic  betterment  just  as  quickly  as 
we  see  such  step  or  such  change  to  be  desirable. 

We  could  then  institute  as  several  of  our  progressive 
states  in  keeping  with  some  of  the  more  progressive 
European  countries  are  instituting,  or  have  instituted 
—  the  Recall.  By  means  of  it  when  a  public 
official  shows  himself  too  subservient  to  the  will  or  to 
the  interests  of  public-service  corporations,  trusts, 
combines,  etc.,  or  shows  too  fully  a  disregard  of  the 
expressed  will  of  the  people,  or  violates  too  fully  his 
anti-election  pledges,  he  can,  upon  petition  of  a  stipu- 
lated number  of  voters,  providing  it  is  sustained  by  a 
majority  of  voters  when  referred  in  a  regular  manner 
to  them,  be  recalled  and  retired  and  a  true  representa- 
tive of  the  people's  interests  be  selected  in  his  place. 
This  is  a  principle  long  recognized  and  long  established 
[270] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

in  the  business  world.  No  business  man  would  against 
his  will  continue  in  his  employ  an  agent  incompetent, 
or  a  thieving,  dishonest  agent.  We  are  certainly 
capable  of  exhibiting  as  much  ordinary  common-sense 
in  matters  of  government  where  such  tremendous 
interests  are  at  stake,  as  we  are  in  matters  of  ordinary 
business. 

It  wouM  end  the  public  careers  of  men,  quite  a  little 
list  in  our  New  York  State  Legislature,  for  example, 
who  have  been  there,  some  for  years,  in  the  direct 
service  and  in  the  direct  pay  of  corporations  that  are 
filching  the  people  of  the  State  for  their  own  gain,  and 
whose  methods,  whose  influence,  and  whose  subser- 
viency to  these  interests  are  more  detrimental  and  more 
destructive  to  the  people's  interest  and  the  interests  of 
the  State,  than  the  acts  of  thousands  whom  we  call 
criminals  in  our  state  penitentiaries  to-day.  If  this 
volume  were  given  to  personalities,  this  list  in  the  New 
York  Legislature  could  be  given.  Those  in  the  Legis- 
latures in  other  states,  as  well  as  in  the  Councils  of 
various  large  cities  will  come  to  the  minds  of  those 
at  all  conversant  with  these  matters. 

Then  the  election  of  United  States  Senators  by  the 
direct  vote  of  the  people,  such  as  practically  all  are  now 
convinced,  is  not  only  desirable  but  necessary,  can  be 
brought  about  in  a  comparatively  short  time,  and  this 
great  stronghold  of  monopoly  in  our  national  govern- 
ment can  be  taken.  With  it  can  be  retired  some  of  the 
various  members  that  will  readily  come  to  the  mind  of 
every  reader  at  all  conversant  with  public  affairs,  that 
[271] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

are  very  carefully  watching  and  upholding  even  with  a 
grim  defiance  of  the  public  the  interests  of  the  "  inter- 
ests. "  The  following  is  from  an  editorial  in  one  of  our 
leading  New  York  City  papers : 

"The  free  and  intellectual  inhabitants  of  the  State 
of  New  York  are  supposed  to  have  two  representa- 
tives in  the  United  States  Senate.  As  a  matter  of  fact 
a  New  York  express  company  has  one  representative 
in  the  United  States  Senate;  a  very  rich  family  of  railroad 
owners  has  the  other  representative  in  the  Untied  States 
Senate,  and  the  people  are  not  represented  there  by  so 
much  as  a  white  kitten.  Nice,  popular  representation, 
isn't  it  ?  Under  the  circumstances  you  can  hardly  wonder 
that  no  effort  is  made  to  protect  the  people's  interests 
when  corporations  are  concerned. " 

And  what  could  be  said  of  a  United  States  Senator 
from  a  very  small  state  who  could  be  described  quite 
accurately  as  an  arch  enemy  of  the  American  people's 
interests.  What  could  be  said  also  of  a  member  of  the 
Senate  from  another  small  state,  as  also  of  certain  others 
from  states  not  so  small  ? 

The  possession  of  these  agencies  would  enable  us 
to  bring  about  more  easily  and  more  quickly  a  change 
that  the  movement  now  world-wide  along  the  lines  of  a 
truer  democracy,  along  the  lines  of  an  increasing  power 
in  the  hands  of  the  sovereign  people,  is  demanding, 
namely,  that  all  Federal  judges  and  all  important 
officers  now  receiving  their  positions  by  appointment, 
be  made  elective  at  the  hands  of  the  people.  It  is  quite  as 
necessary  that  laws  and  statutes  be  construed  by  repre- 
[272] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

sentatives  of  the  popular  will  of  the  people,  as  that  the 
laws  and  statutes  be  enacted  in  the  beginning  by  this 
same  agency.  Here  is  a  change  in  a  feature  of  our 
government  that  we  must  now  be  giving  attention  to. 

The  possession  of  these  weapons  would  enable  us  to 
bring  about  an  effective  income  tax,  or  an  effective 
inheritance  tax,  or  an  effective  act  limiting,  for  the  great- 
er public  good,  the  accumulations,  with  constant  addi- 
tions thereto,  the  vast  private  fortunes  that  will  become 
in  time  as  menacing  and  as  poisoning  to  the  greater 
public  welfare,  as  they  have  proved  to  be  in  all  times 
past.  That  we  must  be  about  this  matter  in  some  states- 
manlike and  eminently  fair  manner  is  now  clearly 
evident  to  large  portions,  and  perhaps  it  is  not  too  much 
to  say,  to  the  majority  of  thinking  men  who  are  more 
interested  in  the  public  welfare  —  true  patriots  there- 
fore —  than  they  are  in  their  own  selfish  personal  gain. 
A  wise  measure  along  these  lines,  moreover,  cannot  illy 
effect  even  the  possessors  of  these  vast  accumulations 
for  excessive  wealth  is  of  no  advantage,  or  rather  of  no 
real  benefit,  to  any  man  nor  to  his  descendants. 

If  we  cannot  in  all  cases  get  at  a  just  basis  in  the 
distribution  of  the  products  of  labour,  or  in  the  gains 
from  those  properties  whose  great  increase  in  values  is 
caused  by  the  life  and  the  toil  of  all  the  people,  then  we 
will  have  to  get  at  the  matter  also  from  the  other  end. 
Not  the  interests  of  a  few  individuals,  able  and  shrewd 
I  admit,  but  the  welfare  of  all  the  people,  must  be  the 
motto  of  a  really  great  and  continually  progressive 
nation.  That  we  will  be  able  to  find  a  fair  and  a  just 
[273] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

basis  upon  which  we  shall    build  such  action,  I  am 
confident. 

It  is  perhaps  not  unwise  to  say  that  we  must  get  the 
agencies  of  government  so  into  our  own  hands  by  these 
direct  methods  that  we  can  put  an  effective  end  to  the 
gambling  and  predatory  methods  of  Wall  Street,  not  to 
any  methods  that  are  honourable  and  legitimate  and 
commendable,  but  to  those  that  are  hellish  in  their 
nature  and  whereby  tribute  is  levied  upon  every  man, 
woman  and  child  in  the  nation  in  order  that  a  few 
buccaneers  may  add  still  more  to  their  already  ungodly 
and  illegitimate  gains.  Their  methods  enable  them  to 
reach  out  into  every  state  and  every  city  and  every  hamlet 
in  the  nation  to  gather  in  their  tribute  and  their  toll. 

Many  of  our  clearest  thinking  men  are  realizing 
that  the  time  has  come  that  a  Federal  Bureau  of  Cor- 
porations be  established,  so  that  all  companies,  cor- 
porations, trusts,  etc.,  doing  in  any  way  an  inter- 
state business  get  their  charters  and  articles  of  incorpora- 
tion from  the  Federal  government,  and  be  strictly  subject 
to  its  scrutiny  and  regulations.  On  the  basis  of  certain 
fair  but  adequate  requirements,  those  companies  and 
corporations  designing  to  do  a  business  unfair,  unlaw- 
ful and  illegitimate,  could  be  weeded  out.  The  present 
stock  watering  methods  now  used  so  freely  and  so 
openly  employed  by  practically  all  large  companies 
and  corporations,  and  all  methods  designed  to  give 
inflated  or  fictitious  values  to  their  stocks,  could  then 
be  suppressed  and  could  be  dealt  with  in  a  systematic 
and   satisfactory   manner. 

[274] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

The  possession  of  these  weapons  will  enable  us  as  an 
intelligent  and  a  determined  people,  to  bring  about 
such  regulations  or  limitations  in  the  methods  and 
aggressions  of  our  great  modern  trusts  and  combines 
as  become  monopolistic  in  their  methods  or  oppressive 
and  therefore  destructive  to  the  individual  citizen's 
welfare.  We  could  then  counterbalance  in  an  effective 
way  the  skilful  work  of  the  representatives  of  these 
agencies  that  have  become  intrenched  in  our  various 
Halls  of  Legislation.  We  could  counterbalance  the 
efforts  of  these  representatives  of  the  "interests," 
as  they  obstruct  and  fight  from  within  every  measure 
that  is  designed  to  protect  the  people  and  the  public 
from  the  aggressions  of  such  of  these  as  are  dishonourable 
and  law  defying  or  law  breaking  in  their  practices,  as 
well  as  blighting  and  corrupting  in  their  influences. 
We  could  also  in  time,  and  quickly  in  some  cases, 
cause  a  complete  political  extinction  to  become  the  lot 
of  the  representatives  of  these  interests. 

I  would  not  be  understood  as  opposed  to  any  of  those 
interests  that  are  honourable  and  above  board  in  their 
methods;  or  opposed  to  the  advancement  of  those  in- 
terests that  are  not  opposed  to  the  greater  public  in- 
terests. Large  corporations  and  large  combinations  of 
capital  can  accomplish  results  that  are  unquestionably 
of  great  public  benefit.  Those  that  are  honourable  in 
their  methods  should  in  no  way  be  hampered.  I  do  not 
believe  on  the  other  hand  that  they  should  be  unduly 
favoured  for  they  are  abundantly  able  to  take  care  of 
themselves.  When,  however,  they  secure  their  favours 
[275] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

and  their  advantages  at  the  terrific  price  that  in  the  end 
must  be  paid  by  the  individual  citizen  and  the  public 
welfare,  then  I  say  we  cannot,  without  intelligent  and 
effective  protest,  sit  by  and  complacently  permit  these 
blighting  influences  longer  to  ply  their  trade.  Because  a 
man  is  very  wealthy  it  does  not  follow  that  he  is  a  criminal, 
though  many  are.  That  a  corporation  is  large  and 
successful  is  no  sign  that  it  is  dishonourable  or  criminal 
in  its  methods.  Very  many,  however,  are.  Those  that 
are  honourable  in  their  methods  should  be  given 
every  respect  and  every  aid  up  to  the  point  that  this 
respect  and  this  aid  is  not  detrimental  to  the  interests 
of  others  and  to  the  public  welfare.  From  those  that 
are  not  we  should  not  only  withhold  respect  and  aids  of 
every  kind,  but  we  should  find  an  orderly  and  effective 
method  not  only  of  checking  their  aggressions,  but  if 
they  persist  in  such  methods  then,  of  putting  them  out 
of  business  completely.  Are  we  as  a  people  intelligent 
and  determined  enough  to  do  this  ?  Other  people  are. 
I  believe  we  are  also.  When  the  people  are  sufficiently 
united  and  determined  these  matters  are  not  so  complex 
and  difficult  of  attainment,  as  they  in  the  ordinary 
course  of  events  and  under  a  half-hearted  method  of 
procedure,  appear.  But  before  a  people  of  the  right 
temper  these  forces  of  corporation  and  privilege  will 
listen  and  will  seek  cover,  and  when  they  are  once  on 
the  run  they  are  among  the  greatest  of  cowards.  Ordin- 
arily they  will  not  stand  in  a  square  and  open  fight,  but 
when  routed  they  are  liable  to  pop  up  again  in  the  most 
unexpected  ways.  They  must  be  continually  watched. 
[276] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

I  think  the  author  of  the  following  paragraph,  from 
a  recent  number  of  The  Outlook,  reads  aright  the  signs 
and  the  temper  of  the  times: 

"  The  people  do  not  resent  wealth,  but  they  do  resent 
predatory  wealth.  They  would  not  despoil  their  neighbour 
of  any  property  honestly  acquired;  but  they  would 
despoil  him  of  the  power  to  monopolize  any  of  the 
avenues  of  trade  or  to  control  any  of  the  functions  of 
government.  To  compel  plutocracy  to  act  decently  is 
not  enough;  they  wish  to  destroy  plutocracy  and  re- 
establish democracy  —  perhaps  I  should  say  to  establish 
for  the  first  time  in  the  world's  history,  a  democracy  of 
industry.  And  they  are  quietly  but  none  the  less  eagerly 
asking,  What  next?  .  .  .  Not  the  regulation  but 
the  overthrow  of  monopoly  is  the  popular  demand." 

It  should  be  the  purpose  of  a  wise  and  liberty  loving 
people  to  afford  every  encouragement  and  protection 
to  each  and  every  honest  and  legitimate  business,  be  it 
large  or  be  it  small.  In  this  there  should  be  no  discrim- 
ination. But  when  through  bribery  and  the  debauchery 
of  public  servants,  and  when  through  the  securing  of 
unwarranted  favours  they  are  detrimental  to  practically 
every  other  interest,  or  when  by  technical  evasions  or 
delays  in  the  process  of  existing  laws  under  the  guid- 
ance of  skilled  legal  talent,  or  when  through  contemp- 
tuous disregard  or  open  and  apparently  fearless  viola- 
tions of  existing  laws,  or  when  by  virtue  of  the  confisca- 
tion of  vast  amounts  of  the  people's  property,  companies, 
corporations,  vested  interests,  trusts  and  monopolies 
become  so  great,  so  contemptuous  of  the  people's  rights, 
[277] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart, 

of  the  state,  and  of  the  entire  public  welfare,  then  it  is 
the  plain  duty  of  a  worthy,  fair-minded  and  liberty 
loving  people  who  have  or  who  can  have  the  full  agencies 
of  government  in  their  own  hands,  to  come  forward 
and  as  one  man  to  cry  out,  thou  thief,  thou  briber  and 
dcbaucher,  thou  criminal  black  in  your  law  defying 
and  law  breaking  methods,  thou  despoiler  of  other 
men's  goods,  thou  robber  of  even  widows  and  de- 
pendent children,  thou  traitor  to  the  public  welfare,  so 
far  and  no  farther. 

Let  every  vested  interest  be  protected,  but  let  every 
smaller  interest  be  protected  also  in  like  manner.  Let 
no  favouritism  be  shown  whereby  one  class  of  interests 
is  able  to  cripple,  crush  and  kill  any  other  interest. 

There  is  no  danger  of  the  American  people,  unless 
trifled  with  too  long  and  unless  goaded  to  the  last  ditch 
of  desperation,  manifesting  any  undue  hostility  to  any 
vested  interests,  and  certainly  none  to  any  that  are 
honourable  and  straightforward  in  their  methods;  and 
is  there  a  man  living  who  would  think  or  who  would  be 
bold  enough  to  proclaim  that  hostility  should  not  be 
shown  to  all  that  are  not  ?  It  is  only  an  ignorant,  or  a 
weakly  or  foolishly  self-complacent,  or  an  already 
conquered  people,  though  perchance  ignorant  of  the 
fact,  that  will  not  arouse  itself  to  a  sufficient  hostility 
to  put  an  end  to  an  economic  slavery  of  such  type,  and 
that  unless  ended  will  have  as  its  final  end  a  complete 
political  slavery. 

We  have  this  interesting  and  farcical  condition  that 
has  come  about  among  us,  interesting  were  it  not  so 
[278] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

notoriously  bold  and  brazen  and  so  degrading  and 
destructive  in  its  results  —  A  body  of  rich  men  individu- 
ally and  collectively  conspire  for  their  own  greater  and 
quicker  enrichment,  deliberately  to  violate  some  fully 
established  law.  Many  times  then  through  certain  other 
influences  they  set  into  operation  they  are  not  even 
molested,  or  if  so  they  many  times  go  scot  free.  If, 
however,  they  are  tried  and  convicted  they  are  let  off 
with  a  paltry  fine  —  $5,000  or  $10,000,  or  in  rare  cases 
$25,000.  An  employee  of  one  of  these  corporations  has 
filched  from  his  employers  a  few  hundred  or  a  few 
thousand  dollars,  or  another  has  filched  from  the  city 
or  state.  He  is  promptly  arrested,  speedily  tried  and 
sentenced  to  the  penitentiary  for  a  term  ranging  say 
from  two  to  twenty  years.  Now  why  not  fine  him  a 
certain  small  percentage  of  what  he  has  filched.  Is  it 
five  thousand  ?  Make  him  pay  over  five  hundred  of  it 
and  call  the  matter  ended  ?  In  other  words,  what  effect 
or  rather  what  deterrent  effect,  has  a  fine  of  five  thou- 
sand or  twenty-five  thousand  or  a  million  dollars  where 
millions  are  gained  on  the  part  of  the  managers  and 
proprietors  of  trusts  and  large  corporations,  through 
their  criminal  violations  of  established  law?  If  it  is 
right  that  the  small  filcher  whom  we  call  criminal  be 
sent  to  State's  Prison,  then  there  is  the  same  right 
and  all  the  greater  reason  that  these  criminals  who 
filch  under  the  most  cold-blooded  and  deliberate 
methods  their  millions,  who  hamper  or  destroy  thou- 
sands of  businesses,  who  undermine  the  very  foundations 
of  law,  of  order,  of  free  institutions,  then  I  say  there  is 
|  27<)  ] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

the  same  right  and  all  the  greater  reason  that  these  be 
sent  to  State's  Prison,  or  that  they  be  fined  so  heavily 
that  it  results  in  a  virtual  confiscation  of  their  entire 
business,  or  both.  We  should  not  be  at  all  chary  about 
talking  of  "  confiscation  "  when  it  comes  to  dealing  with 
criminals.  We  must,  as  a  people,  speedily  get  the  ma- 
chinery of  government  —  the  law  making  and  inter- 
preting power  —  so  into  our  own  hands  through  the 
simple  and  direct  methods  already  enumerated,  that 
we  can  put  a  speedy  end  to  this  travesty  on  justice  and 
order. 

I  do  not  believe  in  condemning  any  man.  My  own 
errors  and  shortcomings  forbid  that.  So  to  a  greater  or 
less  extent  do  those  of  every  man.  It  is  only  an  all -wise 
and  a  faultless  being  that  is  capable  of  judging  or  con- 
demning; only  on  the  part  of  such  would  it  be  at  all 
consistent.  But  such  a  being  I  believe  would  find  no 
place  in  his  mind  or  in  his  heart  for  condemnation. 
And  understanding  so  well  the  frailties  of  human  nature, 
in  all  his  judgments  he  would  be  most  lenient.  But 
when  a  certain  order  of  society  is  established  that  men 
may  live  harmoniously  and  mutually  advantageously 
together,  certain  forms  must  be  established  and  obed- 
ience to  them  must  be  compelled. 

We  must  drive  the  money-changers  from  the  Temple 
even  as  the  Christ  drove  them  in  His  day.  In  connection 
with  all  the  frailties  of  human  nature  He  was  supremely 
charitable.  The  only  ones  He  ever  judged  harshly  or 
ever  really  condemned  so  far  as  we  have  any  record  at 
least,  were  those  who  bound  burdens  on  other  men's 
[280] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
backs,  who  never  raised  even  a  finger  to  make  them 
lighter,  who  sought  ever  to  gain  advantage  at  another's 
disadvantage,  who  oppressed  or  who  robbed  the  people. 
When  we  put  forth  the  restraining  hand  to  hold  in 
check  or  to  drive  completely  out  of  business  men  who 
rend  and  tear  the  flesh  from  other  men,  simply  that 
they  may  gorge  themselves,  not  that  they  need  food, 
then  we  will  manifest  somewhat  the  wisdom  and  in- 
sight that  was  manifested  by  Him,  who  understood  so 
fully  our  common  human  nature  that  He  was  all  com- 
passion and  forgiveness  for  all  save  those  who  oppressed, 
who  made  burdens  heavier,  who  sought  for  advantage 
to  another's  disadvantage. 

I  know  it  is  a  fascinating  game,  this  financial  game. 
I  also  know  well  that  great  law  of  life,  that  we  grow 
into  the  likeness  of  those  things  we  habitually  contem- 
plate. As  is  one's  dominating  thought,  so  his  life  becomes. 
As  within,  so  without  —  simply  the  direct  law  of  cause 
and  effect.  I  therefore  know  that  the  game  with  some 
natures  becomes  so  fascinating  and  so  irresistible  that 
they  are  carried  to  depths  and  extremes  that  they  never 
even  contemplated  at  the  start.  To  reach  out  and  gain 
an  additional  million  now  and  then  that  he  does  not 
earn,  but  by  hook  and  crook,  by  gaining  or  taking  some 
manifestly  unfair  advantage,  by  a  contemptuous  de- 
fiance, or  by  a  brazen,  open  violation  of  law,  or  by  a 
process  of  indirect  murder,  as  many  a  million  among 
us  has  been  gained  —  and  the  greater  shame  upon  us 
as  a  people  —  becomes  fascinating  and  well-nigh  irre- 
sistible. But  where  men  are  absolutely  incapable  of 
[281] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

exercising  self-restraint,  but  are  given  to  excesses  and 
crimes  that  are  not  only  detrimental  to  society,  but  are 
destructive  to  the  very  forces  that  hold  society  to- 
gether, then  it  is  clearly  our  duty  to  deal  with  such  men 
by  way  of  restraint  the  same  as  we  restrain  the  lesser 
criminal.  The  point  is  simply  this  —  we  must  stop 
recognizing  men  and  groups  of  men  who  are  engaged 
in  these  practices  as  among  our  "successful  and  repre- 
sentative "  citizens.  We  must  look  upon  these  "rich  men 
without  moral  sense  consumed  by  greed,  devoid  of  scruples 
and  utterly  contemptuous  of  the  rights  of  the  people," 
as  the  oppressors,  as  the  law-breakers,  as  the  criminals 
that  they  actually  are.  We  must  deal  with  them  by  way 
of  restraint  in  exactly  the  same  manner  as  we  deal  with 
all  other  types  of  criminals.  It  is  only  by  treatment 
such  as  this  that  we  can  hope  to  cope  with  this  type, 
this  most  dangerous  type  of  criminal  that  has  become 
so  rampant  and  so  bold  and  so  brazen  among  us.  Just 
as  sensible  to  attempt  to  kill  an  elephant  or  retard  his 
progress  with  a  pop-gun  and  its  attendant  paper  wads, 
as  to  try  to  head  off  or  to  keep  even  with  the  corrupt 
and  criminal  practices  that  these  men  and  federated 
groups  of  men  are  constantly  operating  under,  by 
meeting  to  them  the  penalty  of  a  fine,  either  nominal 
or  heavy. 

In  addition  to  the  possession  of  these  weapons,  one 
of  the  most  significant  features  of  the  way  the  people 
will  win  out  in  the  great  battles  that  are  now  on  for  a 
clean,  a  truly  representative,  and  a  continually 
advancing  government,  is  the  type  of  young  men  that 
[282] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

are  now  coming  into  the  field  of  'political  action  both  as 
voters  and  as  men  who  will  stand  for  and  who  will  be 
elected  to  public  office.  Here  lies  one  of  the  most  en- 
couraging and  significant  features  or  facts  of  the  times. 
Already  in  some  sections  they  are  throwing  out  their 
battle  lines,  and  some  of  the  old  time  and  hitherto 
secure  bosses  and  machine  managers  are  fighting  with 
a  desperate  chance  to  retain  their  hold.  Some  are 
already  down  and  out,  others  are  rapidly  on 
the  way.  What  has  occurred  at  a  few  points 
already  is  enough,  as  I  have  heard  it  aptly  put, 
to  drive  the  old  time  apostle  of  "regularity"  to  drink 
or  to  suicide.  Some  of  the  old  time  bosses  and  machine 
managers  as  well  as  machine  wards  are  already  believ- 
ing in  their  vague  superstitious  bewilderment  that  the 
methods  of  Hell  have  broken  loose  and  have  crossed  the 
border,  and  others  that  Hell  even  is  crazy.  They  are 
asking,  what  next  ?  and  wondering  where  the  next  blow 
will  fall. 

To  the  young  man  who  will  consent  to  stand  for  or 
who  will  aspire  to  public  office,  I  would  say,  be  suffic- 
iently wise  and  far-sighted  as  not  to  aim  for  or  not  to 
stop  at  the  politician's  stage.  You  will  have  to  dirty 
your  fingers  continually,  and  you  will  have  to  lower 
your  ideals  and  your  whole  trend  of  life  if  you  do,  you 
will  have  to  associate  with  and  have  as  your  constant 
and  many  times  unwelcome  companions  dirty  and 
selfish  and  scheming  men.  You  will  take  your  orders 
from  a  boss,  you  will  become  subservient  to  him.  He 
will  keep  you  as  long  as  he  and  his  like  have  use  for 
[283] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
you.  Association  and  like  trends  of  thought  will  in  time 
mould  you  into  his  likeness.  You  may  sink  to  his  level 
and  in  time  become  a  boss  —  a  parasite  now  rapidly 
becoming  despicable  in  the  public  estimation;  but  the 
chances  are  that  you  will  get  so  far  and  no  farther.  You 
will  thereby  set  your  own  limitations,  and  in  latter 
years  you  will  confess  that  your  life  is  a  disappointment, 
as  it  will  indeed  be  to  your  family  and  to  all  of  your  trur 
friends. 

If  the  stuff  is  in  you  then  I  beg  of  you  to  strike  for 
the  higher  ground.  If  the  stuff  is  in  you,  you  may  reach 
the  statesman  stage,  but  you  will  reach  it  only  by  never 
making  a  deal  whereby  honour  is  sacrificed,  and  by  being 
far-sighted  enough  and  brave  and  resolute  enough  to 
stand  and  to  stand  uncompromisingly  for  such  measures 
of  public  policy  and  such  methods  of  party  management 
as  are  always  for  the  people's  greatest  good. 

If  then  the  stuff  is  in  you,  if  you  are  wise  and  resourceful, 
you  needn't  bother  so  much  about  retaining  the  people's 
support,  about  retaining  hold  on  your  position.  The 
people  will  attend  to  that.  We  need  more  such  men. 
We  need  more  such  young  men  that  the  people  find  it 
a  pleasure  and  a  duty  to  support.  We  need  more  such 
young  men  to  come  from  our  farms,  which  contain 
to-day  one  of  the  most  interesting  and  promising  sets 
of  young  men  in  the  entire  world.  We  need  more  such 
young  men  from  our  workshops  and  from  all  the  ranks 
of  labour.  We  need  more  such  young  men  to  come  from 
our  colleges  and  universities.  We  are  able  to  recognize 
such  men  when  they  are  really  to  be  found. 

284] 


In  the  Fire  of  tlie  Heart 

It  is  interesting  and  somewhat  amusing  to  see  how 
even  old-time  bosses  of  his  own  party  as  well  as  kindred 
types  of  men  in  all  grades  of  publie  office  and  in  party 
management,  those  who  would  have  downed  and  who 
would  have  knifed  him  a  hundred  times  in  the  past  if 
they  could  have  found  the  way,  are  now,  as  state  and 
congressional  campaigns  are  coming  on  again,  rushing 
to  the  support  of  President  Roosevelt  and  "  the  policies 
for  which  he  is  standing" — trying  in  the  majority  of 
cases  to  crawl  in  under  his  tent  folds.  "According  to 
the  desires  of  President  Roosevelt,"  "for  the  sake  of 
the  policies  for  which  President  Roosevelt  stands," 
etc.,  etc.  The  following  from  a  circular  recently  issued 
by  the  leader  of  an  Assembly  District,  in  the  Borough 
of  Brooklyn,  is  quite  typical: 

"  We  believe  it  to  be  the  duty  of  every  man  who  has 
the  Republican  party's  interest  at  heart,  and  who  de- 
sires to  aid  the  cause  for  which  President  Roosevelt  and 
the  national  and  State  administrations  stand,  to  put 
forth  every  effort  to  elect  executive  members,  county 
committeemen,  and  State  delegates  who  will  support 
the  —  organization  as  at  present  constituted  under  the 
leadership  of  — " 

There  is  nothing  that  so  takes  hold  of  men,  that  so 
challenges  their  admiration,  that  so  compels  their  re- 
spect and  their  support  as  downright  honesty  of  purpose, 
as  a  courage  that  compels  a  man  to  stand  firmly  or  to 
drive  on  until  he  accomplishes  what  an  upright  soul 
that  will  make  no  compromise  with  dishonour  compels. 
Such  men  compel  the  support  of  the  people  that  lesser 
[285] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

and  compromising  and  timid  men  continually  seek. 
Does  this  not  give  us  hope  for  the  future  of  our  country 
and  institutions  ?  Does  it  not  give  us  renewed  faith  in 
our  old  human  nature  that  we  have  so  many  times 
questioned  ?  Does  it  not  give  us  a  renewed  faith  for  the 
future  of  the  race? 

And  to  speak  fully  and  frankly  what  one  observes 
and  feels  —  the  great  admiration  and  love  the  millions 
among  us  feel  for  Mr.  Bryan,  and  entirely  irrespective 
of  any  party  names  or  lines  is  because  they  recognize 
in  him  also  a  brave  and  an  honest  man,  and  a  man  with 
a  heart  primarily  of  love.  A  man  so  endowed  will  stand 
always  for  the  people's  interest  and  welfare.  A  man 
who  so  stands  is  a  man  of  the  statesman  stature. 

One  day,  several  years  ago,  a  certain  congressman 
visited  President  Roosevelt  in  the  interests  of  a  well- 
known  man,  quite  prominent  in  State  politics,  whose 
activities  in  connection  with  certain  postal  contracts 
made  it  probable  that  he  would  be  indicted  for  bribery 
or  conspiracy,  or  for  both.  In  order  that  there  be  no 
misunderstanding  in  regard  to  his  position,  President 
Roosevelt  followed  up  their  interview  with  the  following 
letter. 

"(  Personal.)" 
"White  House,  Washington,  October — ,  1903. 
"My  dear  Congressman: 

"  The  statement,  alleged  to  have  been  made  by  the 

inspector  that  I  '  ordered '  the  indictment  of , 

or  anyone  else,  is  a  lie, —  just  as  much  a  lie  as  if  it  had 

been  stated  that  I  ordered  that  anyone  should   not  be 

[286] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

indicted.  My  directions  have  been  explicit,  and  are  ex- 
plicit now.  Anyone  who  is  guilty  is  to  be  prosecuted 
with  the  utmost  rigour  of  the  law,  and  no  one  who  is  not 
guilty  is  to  be  touched.  I  care  not  a  rap  for  the  political 
or  social  influence  of  any  human  being  when  the  ques- 
tion is  one  of  his  guilt  or  innocence  in  such  a  matter  as 
the  corruption  of  the  Government  service. 

"  I  note  what  you  say,  that  the  circulation  of  this  re- 
port about  me  may  alienate  the  support  of  many   of 

's  friends  from  my  administration.  Frankly,    I 

feel  that  anyone  who  would  believe  such  a  story  must 
be  either  lacking  in  intell  gence,  or  else  possessed  of 
malignant  credulity.  If  anyone  is  to  be  alienated  from 
me  by  the  fact  that  I  direct  the  prosecution  of  Republi- 
can or  Democrat,  without  regard  to  his  political  or 
social  standing,  when  it  appears  that  he  is  guilty  of 
gross  wrongdoing,  —  why,  all  I  can  say  is,  let  him  be 
alienated. 

"If  District  Attorney has  anything  which  should 

be  known  to  the  Attorney-General  or  to  me  as  regards 
this  suit,  I  should  be  delighted  to  see  him.  But,  frankly, 
I  have  not  the  slightest  desire  to  see  him  if  his  visit  is 
to  be  in  the  interest  'of  the  welfare  of  the  party,'  or 
of  my  'success.'  In  a  case  like  this,  where  the  crime 
charged  is  one  that  strikes  at  the  foundations  of  the 
Commonwealth,  I  should  hold  myself  unfit  for  this 
office  if  I  considered  for  one  moment  either  my  own 
welfare,  or  the  interest  of  the  party,  or  anything  else 
except  the  interests  of  justice.  Respectfully, 

"  Theodore    Roosevelt.  " 
[287] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

Why  do  I  cite  this  ?  It  will  give  to  young  men  an  in- 
dication of  qualities  that  compel  the  confidence  and  the 
support  of  the  people;  with  such  qualities  subserviency 
to  party  boss  and  party  machine,  subserviency  to  low 
politician  methods  are  made  unnecessary.  It  will  offer  a 
suggestion  as  to  one  reason  why  President  Roosevelt 
occupies  the  position  he  o-day  occupies;  also  why  it 
can  be  so  truthfully  said  that  he  is  the  only  people's 
President  we  have  had  since  Lincoln's  time.  It  is  with 
scarcely  an  exception  the  limitations  that  a  man  sets 
to  himself  that  determine  the  level  to  which  he  will 


rise. 


Again  to  the  young  man  entering  or  contemplating 
entering  political  life  —  If  you  have  contemplated 
employing  the  methods  first  enumerated  and  stopping 
at  the  politician  stage,  then  think  again  and  be  wise 
and  keep  out  altogether.  Stay  in  the  workshop,  on  the 
farm,  at  your  business,  your  profession,  and  have  there- 
by a  more  satisfactory  life,  and  a  life  of  more  value  to 
your  fellow-men  than  it  would  be  if  you  entered  politics 
on  this  basis.  If,  however,  you  have  the  material  in  you 
and  a  determination  sufficient  to  measure  up  to  the 
stature  of  the  statesman,  then,  for  God's  sake  go  into 
political  life,  and  stay  in  if  you  ~an,  as  long  as  a  well- 
rounded  life  will  permit.  You  could  do  no  nobler  thing. 


[288] 


IX 
THE    GREAT    NATION 

1  HERE  never  has  been,  and  from  the  very  nature  of 
human  nature  there  never  can  be  a  truly  great  nation 
where  one  class  of  people  rule,  and  another  class  or  the 
other  classes  are  ruled.  The  great  nation  is  that  alone 
in  which  the  people  rule,  where  through  their  agent  — 
the  state  or  government,  they  attend  to  their  own  affairs, 
and  where  they  do  not  allow  others  to  attend  to  their 
affairs  for  them.  Government  must  be  thoroughly 
representative  or  those  in  power  will  gradually  get  the 
agents  of  administration  and  of  production  so  under 
their  control,  and  will  so  use  them  for  their  own  gain 
and  their  continually  increasing  powers,  that  in  time 
the  very  liberties  of  the  people  will  be  stolen  away. 

Of  late,  we  have  been  having  some  very  direct  revela- 
tions of  the  actual  conditions  of  government  in  Russia, 
where  a  group  of  eminently  "  respectable  and  high-born 
gentlemen,"  among  them  no  less  than  an  august  com- 
pany of  Grand  Dukes,  have  for  many  years  been  direct- 
ing the  affairs,  in  a  sense  ruling  this  nation  of  consider- 
ably over  one  hundred  million  people.  Some  own  as 
high  as  a  dozen  or  more  palaces,  all  splendidly  or  even 
sumptuously  equipped,  with  annual  incomes  reaching 
into  the  millions.  This  all  comes  from  the  people  of 
[289] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

Russia,  chiefly  the  working  people.  What  their  condition 
is,  late  events  have  also  revealed  to  the  world,  and  more 
clearly  than  ever  before.  The  hopeless  state  of  inef- 
ficiency that  this  governing  class  has  kept  the  nation 
in,  and  has  prevented  it  from  rising  out  of,  the  whole 
world  now  knows.  To  think  that  their  greed  and  rapac- 
ity and  general  debauchery  would  become  so  great 
that  through  habit  they  could  not  keep  their  hands  off 
of  a  large  and  splendidly  equipped  hospital  train,  that 
was  starting  on  its  journey  during  the  late  struggle  with 
Japan,  to  give  whatever  aid  it  could  administer  to  the 
wounded  and  suffering  soldiers  who  in  their  ignorance 
were  fighting  primarily  to  put  more  money  into  the 
pockets  of  their  rulers!  This  splendidly  equipped  train 
was  completely  looted  and  filled  with  cord  wood  before 
it  had  hardly  gotten  fully  under  way,  at  the  instigation 
or  at  the  connivance  of  those  in  authority.  But  the  people 
of  Russia,  I  hear  it  said,  have  not  yet  attained  their 
freedom  and  so  are  not  able  to  prevent  other  men  ruling 
over  them  notwithstanding  the  state  of  affairs  that  such 
a  system  means.  Very  true,  but  there  is  another  truth 
perhaps  even  more  significant  for  us.  There  have  been 
nations  where  the  people  have  fought  for  and  have  won 
their  freedom,  but  where  through  lack  of  due  vigilance, 
and  by  reason  of  the  growing  and  in  time  mastering 
greed  of  privileged  and  excessive  wealth,  their  liberties 
have  been  stolen  away,  and  their  country,  of  which 
they  were  formerly  proud,  has  through  the  inevitable 
resultant  internal  decay  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the 
despoiler.  The  greed  for  gain  becomes  so  powerful  that 
[290] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

unless  the  great  common  people  find  some  way  of  check- 
ing or  controlling  it,  those  that  become  mastered  by  it 
will  pillage  the  very  liberties  of  their  country  as  quickly 
as  they  will  loot  a  hospital  train.  Recent  developments 
in  our  own  nation,  even  within  the  last  twelvemonth, 
have  clearly  demonstrated  that  there  are  among  us, 
men  of  otherwise  high  standing,  eminently  respectable, 
in  learning,  in  church  standing,  in  society,  but  who 
have  gotten  so  under  the  drunken  sway  of  the  greed  for 
gain  that  they  would  not  only  loot  a  hospital  train,  but 
also  a  funeral  train  were  the  prospective  inducements 
sufficiently  large,  and  were  the  chances  of  not  being  dis- 
covered at  it  of  a  sufficiently  rosy  hue.  This  may  be  plain 
speaking.  But  a  man  who  will  cause  or  connive  at  death 
for  gain,  and  many  a  death  has  been  caused  by  the  schem- 
ing, the  cunning  and  the  depredations  of  some  of  those 
we  term  financiers,  even  within  the  past  few  months, 
is  indeed  worse  in  his  depredations  than  the  one  who 
will  despoil  the  dead. 

"The  law  of  disintegration  and  destruction  never 
sleeps  and  only  eternal  vigilance  can  check  it.  Every  age 
brings  its  own  dangers,  and  those  that  come  stealthily 
are  frequently  more  fatal  than  those  that  come  with  a 
mighty  noise.  .  .  .  Instead  of  an  armed  foe  that 
we  can  meet  on  the  field,  there  is  to-day  an  enemy  that 
is  invisible,  but  everywhere  at  work  destroying  our 
institutions;  that  enemy  is  corruption.  It  seeks  to  direct 
official  action,  it  dictates  legislation  and  endeavours 
to  control  the  construction  of  laws     .     .     .     The  flag 

[291] 


In  the  Fire  of  tJic  Heart 

has  been  praised  at  champagne  dinners,  while  the  very 
pole  from  which  it  floated  was  being  eaten  off  by  cor- 
ruption, and  republican  institutions  were  being  stabbed 
to  the  vitals.  A  new  gospel  has  come  among  us,  accord- 
ing to  which  It  is"  mean  to  rob  a  hen  roost  or  a  hen,  but 
plundering  thousands  makes  us  gentlemen.'" 

As  there  can  be  no  great  nation  without  government 
by  the  people,  so  there  can  be  no  great  nation  without  a 
continual  vigilance  on  the  part  of  the  people.  Vigilance 
is  the  price  that  must  ever  be  paid  for  continued  liberty- 
Equal  advantages  and  opportunities  for  all,  which  is 
fundamental  in  any  great  nation,  without  active  vigi- 
lance on  the  part  of  the  people  will  be  quietly  and  craftily 
changed  into  privilege  for  the  few  to  be  enriched  through 
the  toil  of  the  many.  And  as  wealth  increases  wealth, 
and  power  increases  power,  we  can  readily  see  how 
privilege  and  its  concomitant,  oppression,  has  in  time 
spelled  destruction  to  so  many  former  states. 

The  fact  that  we  have  so  much  to  read  from  history 
and  so  clearly  and  so  repeatedly,  makes  me  so  full  of 
hope  that  there  is  to  come  among  us  a  people's  move- 
ment that  is  to  redeem  and  save  this  nation.  And  cer 
tainly  there  is  now  no  power  of  any  other  nature  that 
can  do  it.  Moreover,  this  movement  must  not  be  unduly 
long  delayed,  for  concentrated  wealth  and  privilege 
are  growing  with  such  gigantic  strides  that  every  year, 
or  now,  even  every  month  of  delay,  on  account  of  their 
continually  growing  entrenchments,  makes  the  people's 
task  more  and  more  difficult. 

The  great  nation,  putting  it  in  another  form,  is  that 
[292] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  [leart 

in  which  the  people  realize  the  fact  that  they  are  not 
separate  from  or  apart  from  government,  but  that  they 
are  government.  It  is  indeed  strange  where  this  is  not  a 
part  of  the  active  consciousness  of  the  people,  what 
a  little  group  of  men  and  families  is  able  to  do  in  gaining 
control  of  the  agencies  and  necessities  upon  which  the 
welfare  or  even  the  very  life  of  the  people  depends. 
And  nothing  has  been  more  clearly  and  more  repeatedly 
demonstrated  in  the  history  of  nations  than  the  fact 
that  he  who  owns  or  controls  that  upon  which  others 
depend,  owns  or  controls  them  also.  It  is  possible  for 
there  to  be  a  nation  of  slaves  without  the  word  slave 
or  any  word  of  a  kindred  nature  ever  being  used.  The 
more  shrewd  and  cunning  the  owners,  the  more  careful 
will  they  be  to  see  that  no  word  or  sign  or  mark  describ- 
ing the  actual  condition  of  those  owned  or  controlled 
be  used  or  even  hinted. 

Where  the  people  are  keen  and  alert  as  to  who  and 
what  they  are  in  relation  to  government,  or  rather  what 
government  is  in  relation  to  them,  there  will  be  found  a 
people  who  see  to  it  that  every  opportunity  is  given 
to  those  who  aim  to  do  right.  Such  a  people  will  see 
that  among  the  great  mass  of  their  toilers,  upon  whose 
sturdy  welfare  and  good  keeping  the  very  welfare  and 
ability  of  the  nation  to  progress,  or  to  continue  even 
to  exist  at  all,  depends,  there  are  not  untold  thousands 
who  are  working  from  early  to  late  year  in  and  year  out, 
getting  merely  or  barely  enough  for  each  day's  work 
to  provide  them  with  food  and  clothing  and  shelter 
that  they  may  be  on  hand  for  to-morrow's  work,  and 
[  293] 


In  t.'1"  Fire  of  the  Heart 

to-morrow's  and  to-nabrrow's — lives  devoid  of  all  learn- 
ing and  art  and  leisure  and  hope,  those  elements  that 
are  so  essential  to  any  life  that  is  not  the  life  of  the 
slave.  This  does  not  conduce  to  that  intelligent  and  pro- 
gressive and  happy  citizenship  that  makes  for  a  real 
nation  of  freemen. 

The  great  nation  is  again,  that  in  which  the  agents 
of  production,  and  especially  those  that  come  under  the 
head  of  natural  monopolies,  those  things  upon  which  all 
the  people  depend,  are  owned  and  administered  as 
nearly  as  is  possible  by  their  agent,  the  state,  and  so 
administered  for  the  good  and  the  welfare  of  all,  and 
are  not  permitted  to  be  monopolized  by  the  few  for  their 
own  enormous  enrichment,  and  therefore,  at  the  expense 
of  the  great  mass  of  the  people.  It  is  the  private  owner- 
ship or  control  of  these  as  we  have  seen,  that  has  per- 
mitted the  growth  of  our  enormously  rich  men  and 
families  that  are  becoming  so  intrenched  that  they  are 
now  becoming  a  menace  to  the  very  life  of  a  nation  of 
freemen.  It  is  some  of  these,  not  all  by  any  means,  that 
have  allowed  themselves  to  become  so  drunken  in  their 
greed  for  an  ever-increasing  gain  that  they  have  resorted, 
and  are  to-day  resorting,  to  such  practices  of  criminality 
and  dishonour  that  they  have  won  for  themselves,  and 
deservedly,  the  term,  'the  low-down  rich. '  And  lam  in- 
clined to  think  that  as  the  people  get  a  still  greater 
insight  into  their  methods  the  application  of  this  term 
or  terms  of  a  similar  nature,  to  them,  will  be  a  continual- 
ly increasing  one.  But  men  who  gain  their  riches  by 
these  methods  are  never  happy.  From  the  very  nature 
[294] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

of  the  laws  that  govern  human  life  they  never  can  be- 
Therefore,  to  save  these  from  their  drunken  frenzied 
folly,  will  be  an  act  on  the  part  of  the  people  that  will 
not  deprive  them  of  anything  that  will  take  away  any 
really  valuable  belongings,  but  will  be  doing  a  kindly 
service  for  them  as  well  as  for  the  people,  by  seeing  that 
these  great  common  belongings  are  held  and  used  as  such. 

The  great  nation  again,  is  not  that  where  through 
this  unnatural  use  of  these  common  belongings  we  have 
a  small  class  of  rich  and  powerful  men  living  in  their 
castles  with  great  hordes  of  hirelings  or  dependents 
about  them.  This  is  something  in  regard  to  which 
history's  lesson  is  most  clearly  written. 

The  nation  with  which  we  are  dealing  is,  again,  the 
one  quick  to  see  its  weaknesses,  also  the  danger  of 
running  into  and  working  in  ruts,  or  remaining  in  ways 
that  were  once  advisable  and  reasonable,  but  where 
the  time  has  long  since  passed  for  it  to  continue  in  these 
ways,  and  where  a  continued  growth  and  advancement, 
to  say  nothing  of  its  even  holding  its  own,  demands  that 
it  keep  up  with  the  process  of  evolution  and  growth  that 
is  ever  working  to  lift  the  minds  and  the  hearts  of  men, 
and  hence  their  relations,  to  continually  higher  planes. 

It  is  also  the  nation  that  is  alive  and  keen  to  the  lessons 
that  can  be  learned  from  other  nations  and  peoples. 
Many  times  the  younger  nations  where  great  concentra- 
tions of  wealth  with  its  debauchery  of  the  agencies  of 
government  on  the  one  hand,  and  its  oppression  on  the 
other,  have  not  yet  gotten  a  foothold,  and  which  there- 
fore are  filled  with  men  and  women  of  lofty  purpose 
[295] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

and  ambitions  for  a  nation  better  than  has  yet  been,  have 
commendable  features  that  the  older  ones  can  adopt  and 
adapt  to  their  own  institutions  with  great  advantage. 

The  welfare  of  the  great  nation  depends  above  all 
things,  perhaps,  upon  the  general  intelligence  of  its 
people,  and  the  more  general  and  wide-spread  this 
intelligence  the  greater,  the  happier  and  the  more  endur- 
ing the  nation.  That  it  cannot  be  an  intelligence  and 
education  on  the  part  of  the  few,  while  ignorance  or  a 
lack  of  intelligence  holds  among  the  larger  numbers, 
has  been  shown  most  clearly  in  connection  with  nations 
that  were  once  among  the  great,  but  that  are  not  now 
known  except  in  history,  or  that  have  fallen  from  their 
place  among  the  ablest  to  a  position  among  the  back- 
ward and  the  unimportant. 

Free  and  open  educational  opportunities  for  all,  for 
the  poorest  as  well  as  the  richest,  is  undoubtedly  the 
best  road  to  a  general  diffusion  of  intelligence  among 
the  people.  It  is  possible  to  have  wide-spread  educational 
facilities  and  still  for  there  to  be  whole  armies  of  children 
numbering  into  the  thousands  of  thousands  or  into  the 
millions,  who,  on  account  of  carelessness  or  greed  or 
incapacity  on  the  part  of  parents  or  other  causes,  are 
deprived  until  it  is  too  late,  of  what  should  be  the  privi- 
lege, and  more,  the  right,  the  sacred  right,  of  every  child. 

The  state  must  see  to  it  more  carefully  than  it  does, 
that  attendance  at  school,  or  some  adequate  means  of 
education,  be  made  more  carefully  and  more  generally 
compulsory  than  it  now  is. 

That  army  of  nearly  two  million  child  labourers  from 
[  296  ] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

five  to  fifteen  years  of  age,  that  are  this  very  day  toiling 
in  our  mills  and  sweat-shops  and  t factories  and  mines, 
must  be  relieved  that  they  too  may  have  the  equipment 
in  mind  and  in  body  sufficient  to  enable  them  to  enter 
upon  the  plane  of  life's  activities  with  opportunities 
somewhat  equal  to  the  other  millions  of  the  same  ages. 

We  have  an  excellent  free  educational  system  in  the 
United  States;  but  it  is  to  a  great  extent  and  far  more 
perhaps  than  we  realize,  offset  by  this  denial  of  oppor- 
tunity to  this  great  army  of  rapidly  coming  citizens 
who  most  of  all  need  these  opportunties  to  enable  them 
to  have  anything  like  a  fair  chance  in  their  struggles  for  a 
self-supporting  competency,  or  even  for  existence  at  all. 

Greed  for  gain,  and  clearly  illegitimate  gain,  will 
prove  triumphant  and  will  stifle  the  higher  promptings 
of  the  nation's  heart,  unless  we  compel  every  man 
running  a  parasitic  business  or  enterprise  to  be  decent. 

"  To  what  purpose  then  is  our  '  age  of  invention '  ? 
Why  these  machines  at  all,  if  they  do  not  help  to  lift 
care  from  the  soul  and  burden  from  the  back  ?  To  what 
purpose  is  our  '  age  of  enlightenment, '  if,  just  to  cover 
our  nakedness,  we  establish  among  us  a  barbarism  that 
overshadows  the  barbarism  of  the  savage  cycle  ?  Is  this 
the  wisdom  of  the  wise  ?  Is  this  the  Christianity  we  boast 
of  and  parade  in  benighted  Madagascar  and  unsaved 
Malabar?  Is  this  what  our  orators  mean  when  they 
jubilate  over  '  civilization '  and  '  the  progress  of  the 
species '  ? 

"  And  why  do  these  children  know  no  rest,  no  play,  no 
learning,  nothing  but  the  grim  grind  of  existence  ?  Is  it 
[297] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

because  we  are  all  naked  and  shivering?  Is  it  because 
there  is  sudden  destitution  in  the  land?  Is  it  because 
pestilence  walks  as  noonday?  Is  it  because  war's  red 
hand  is  pillaging  our  storehouses  and  burning  our  cities  ? 
No,  forsooth!  Never  before  were  the  storehouses  so 
crammed  to  bursting  with  bolts  and  bales  of  every 
warp  and  woof.  No3  forsooth!  The  children,  while  yet 
in  the  gristle,  are  ground  down  that  a  few  more  useless 
millions  may  be  heaped  up.  We  boast  that  we  are  leading 
the  commercialism  of  the  world,  and  we  grind  in  our 
mills  the  bones  of  the  little  ones  to  make  good  our 
boast. 

What  avail  our  exports,  our  tariffs,  our  dividends, 
if  they  rise  out  of  these  treasons  against  God  ?  All  gains 
are  losses,  all  riches  are  poverties,  so  long  as  the  soul  is 
left  to  rot  down.     ...      "* 

There  are  golden  opportunities  for  earnest  men  and 
women  to  enter  upon  a  determined  work  in  every- 
one of  our  states  until  conditions  along  these  lines  in 
everyone  of  them  are  what  they  should  be.  Magnificent 
work  has  already  been  and  is  being  done  on  the  part  of 
many;  the  help  of  more,  those  who  have  a  singleness  of 
purpose  that  does  not  stop  even  in  the  face  of  defeats 
until  the  thing  is  done,  is  solely  needed. 

But  outride  of  this  great  army  of  children  at  work  at 
that  important  period  when  they  should  be  getting 
their  equipment  for  life's  work  and  duties,  many  times 
at  the  expense  of  great  bodily  injury  as  well  as  intellect  - 

*  "The  Hoe-Man  in  the  Making,"  Edwin  Markham,  in  the  Sep- 
tember (1906)  Cosmopolitan. 

[  298  ] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

ual  and  moral,  there  are  almost  unbelievingly  large 
numbers  that  are  in  school  but  very  little,  and  still 
others  that  are  there  none  at  all.  Every  child  in  school 
until  a  certain  age  or  until  a  sufficient  equipment  to  meet 
the  ordinary  duties  of  life  is  reached,  should  be  the  na- 
tion's  motto. 

It  is  also  eminently  fitting  that  something  be  said  of 
the  quality  of  the  education  it  is  proposed  to  make 
compulsory  attendance  upon  universal.  To  come  at  once 
to  the  point  in  mind  and  briefly  —  training  of  the 
intellect  alone  is  not  sufficient;  we  shall  remain  a  long 
way  off  from  the  ideal  until  we  make  moral,  humane, 
heart-training  a  far  more  important  feature  of  our 
educational  systems  than  we  have  made  it  thus  far.  We 
are  advancing  in  this  respect,  but  we  have  great  advances 
yet  to  make.  Kindness  and  consideration,  sympathy  and 
fraternity,  love  of  justice  —  the  full  and  ready  willingness 
to  give  it  as  well  as  to  demand  it,  the  clear-cut  compre- 
hension of  the  majesty  and  beauty  that  escapes  into  the 
life  of  the  individual  as  he  understands  and  appropriates 
to  himself  the  all-embracing  contents  of  the  golden  rule. 
The  training  of  the  intellect  alone  at  the  expense  of  the 
"  humanities"  has  made  or  has  enlarged  the  power  of 
many  a  criminal,  many  a  usurper  of  other  men's  homes 
and  property,  many  an  oppressor,  and  has  thereby  added 
poison  and  desolation  to  his  own  life  as  well  as  to  the 
lives  of  those  with  whom  he  has  come  in  contact  and 
who  have  felt  his  blighting  and  withering  influence. 
It  is  also  chiefly  from  those  without  this  training,  that 
that  great  body  of  our  fellow -creatures  which  we  term 

[299] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
the  animal  world,  receive  their  most  thoughtless  and 
cruel  treatment,  and  perhaps  from  among  none  more 
than  among  the  rich  and  fashionable. 

I  think  there  is  another  feature  in  our  educational 
systems  that  we  would  do  wisely  to  give  more  attention 
to.  In  a  nation  of  free  institutions,  more  attention  could 
wisely  be  given  to  systematic  and  concrete  instruction 
in  connection  with  the  institutions  of  government,  and 
in  connection  with  this  a  training  in  civic  pride  that 
sees  to  it  that  our  public  offices  are  filled  with  men  of 
at  least  ordinary  honesty  and  integrity,  men  who  re- 
gard public  office  as  a  public  trust  worthy  the  service 
of  their  highest  manhood,  rather  than  with  those  whose 
eye  is  single  to  the  largest  amount  of  loot  and  graft  that 
comes  within  the  range  of  their  vision  and  the  reach 
of  their  hand.  Such  a  system  would  in  time  spell  the 
end   of  Tammany   Hall  —  a  Democratic  organization 
in  New  York  City,  whose  chief  object  is  to  make  politics 
a  cover  to  divert  the  largest  possible  sums  of  money 
from  the  people  of  the  City  of   New  York  to  line  the 
pockets,  and  in  great  abundance,  of  those  in  control 
of  the  body  of  loot.  It  would  in  time  spell  the  end  of  the 
Republican  rings  and  Halls  whose  object  and  purpose 
is  identically  the  same  in  every  city  where  they  have 
been  able  to  gain  control,  as  well  as  the  Democratic 
rings  in  cities  other  than  New  York.  The  methods  of 
the  rings  of  the  one  are  equally  black  with  the  methods 
of  the  rings  of  the  other;  where  the  motives  are  the 
same  the  resultant  action  is  the  same. 

Our  educational  methods    are  developing.    In   edu- 
[300] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
cational  work  are  some  of  our  noblest,  our  foremost 
men  and  women.  There  is  an  element  of  the  practical, 
the  useful,  that  is  now  sort  of  remodelling  our  earlier 
methods.  It  has  always  seemed  to  me  that  not  only  in 
our  public  schools  but  in  our  colleges  and  universities, 
it  is  possible  to  get  as  great  a  degree  of  training  from 
branches  that  are  in  themselves  useful,  that  will  be  of 
actual  use  later  on,  as  out  of  those  that  are  used  for  their 
training  value  only.  The  element  of  the  useful,  not  at 
the  expense  of  the  training,  but  combined  with  it, 
should  be,  I  think,  and  is  coming  to  be,  the  marked 
feature  of  our  developing  educational  methods. 

The  bread  and  butter  problem  will  be  the  problem 
of  practically  all  in  our  common  or  public  schools  to- 
day. There  probably  will  not  be  one  in  a  thousand 
whose  problem  it  will  not  be.  To  make  our  educational 
systems  so  that  they  will  be  of  the  greatest  'practical 
aid  to  all  as  they  enter  upon  life's  activities  should,  it 
seems  to  me,  be  one  of  our  greatest  aims.  That  our 
college  courses  can  be  improved  to  at  least  from  twenty 
to  forty  per  cent,  along  this  same  line  I  am  fully 
persuaded,  in  addition  to  the  saving  of  considerable 
valuable  time  for  those  who,  contemplating  professional 
careers,  will  afterwards  have  to  spend  a  considerable 
period  in  years  in  professional  schools. 

When  we  consider  that  not  more  than  one  tenth  of  one 
per  cent  of  those  in  our  common  schools  ever  get  as  far  as 
the  college  or  university,  we  can  see  how  important  it  is 
that  every  child  be  guaranteed  what  the  law  of  the  most 
ordinary  justice  demands,  that  he  or  she  have  the  benefit 
[301] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

at  least  of  what  will  enable  him  or  her  to  enter  upon  the 
stage  of  young  manhood  and  young  womanhood  free 
from  such  tremendous  handicaps  with  which  so  many 
are  entering  upon  it  to-day. 

The  great  nation  is  a  religious  nation.  In  order  that 
it  be  truly  religious  it  is  necessary  that  there  be  no 
recognized  or  established  religion,  that  there  be  no  re- 
lation, or  rather  connection  between  Church  and  State. 

It  is  so  easy  to  confound  particulars  with  essentials. 
The  essential,  fundamental  principle,  indeed  the  sum 
and  substance  of  all  true  religion  is  —  The  consciousness 
of  God  in  the  soul  of  man.  To  come  into  the  conscious 
living  realization  of  the  fact  that  the  Spirit  of  Infinite 
Life  and  Power  that  is  back  of  all,  working  in  and 
through  all,  the  life  of  all,  is  the  life  of  our  life,  that  there  is 
no  life  and  no  power  outside  of  it,  and  that  in  it  "  we  live 
and  move  and  have  our  being " —  to  live  and  to  act 
always  in  this  thought  and  this  realization,  is  the  re- 
ligious life.  Without  it  one  may  belong  to  a  thousand 
churches,  or  subscribe  to  the  creeds  of  infinite  varieties 
of  man-made  religious  systems,  but  without  this,  one 
cannot  be  in  the  religious  life.  To  dwell  consciously  and 
continually  in  this  Life,  and  thus  allow  it  to  manifest 
through  us,  is  love  to  God.  To  recognize  it  as  the  life 
of  every  other  being,  manifesting  in  different  stages  of 
Divine  unfoldment,  gives  us  the  best  basis  for  love  of 
the  fellow-man. This  marks  also  the  difference  between 
the  getting  and  the  giving  religion,  for  it  is  true  in  re- 
ligion that  we  can  get  only  as  we  give,  the  same  as  is 
the  law  in  regard  to  happiness. 
[302] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

The  people  of  the  great  nation  is  a  patriotic  people; 
it  is  an  intensely  patriotic  people.  I  read  from  the  dic- 
tionary a  definition  of  "patriotic"  —  "  one  who  loves  his 
country,  and  supports  its  interests."  Through  lack  of 
discrimination  we  have  done  great  violence  to  the  word 
patriotism  in  the  past.  In  its  name  many  foolish  things 
have  been  done.  Most  unpatriotic  and  most  ungodly 
things  have  been  done  in  its  name,  though  many  times 
innocently  done.  We  have  allowed  ourselves  to  be  swayed 
by  the  politician's  patriotism,  by  the  capitalist  looter's 
patriotism,  by  the  demagogic,  self-seeking,  self-consti- 
tuted labour  leader's  patriotism.  They  all  spring  from 
the  same  common  ground  —  self-seeking  at  the  expense 
of  everything  that  is  conducive  to  the  highest  public 
welfare.  As  a  people,  however,  we  are  gaining  wonder- 
fully in  discriminating  power.  As  a  consequence  a  new 
order  of  patriotism  is  coming  into  being  and  among  us. 
What  was  at  one  time  confined  to  the  few  brave,  indepen- 
dent- advanced  men,  is  now  becoming  common  among 
the  people.  We  are  finding  that  the  elements  of  justice 
and  righteousness,  fraternity  and  godliness,  have  a 
very  direct  relation  to,  or  rather,  that  patriotism  has  a 
very  direct  relation  to  them.  War,  war  and  the  flag, 
were  at  one  time  supposed  to  be  the  only  agents  with 
which  patriotism  was  linked.  To  hurrah  for  the  flag  and 
to  be  eager  to  go  to  the  front  when  the  war  bugles  sound- 
ed, or  were  likely  to  sound,  was  for  a  long  period  a 
prevailing  idea  of  patriotism.  It  may  still  be  a  way  in 
which  patriotism  may  be  manifested. 

The  people  are  learning  the  real  cause  of  many  wars, 
[303] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

indeed  the  great  majority  of  them  —  the  bull-headed- 
ness  or  pig-headedness,  the  incapacity  on  the  part  of 
those  having  to  do  with  affairs ;  and  again,  the  throwing 
of  an  entire  nation  into  war  by  large  and  powerful 
though  unscrupulous  financial  interests  solely  for  gain. 
These  two  agents  are  responsible  for  the  great  bulk, 
indeed  for  nine  out  of  every  ten,  of  all  modern  wars, 
even  as  they  have  been  for  all  time  past.  Men  are 
beginning  to  realize  that  instead  of  having  anything 
to  do  with  this  type  of  war,  patriotism  lies  in  refus- 
ing absolutely  to  aid  or  abate  it  and  in  using  one's  in- 
fluence in  a  similar  way  among  one's  neighbours  more 
blunt  and  with  less  power  of  discernment.  When  we 
reach  a  point  where  the  large  body  of  citizens  see  to  it 
that  these  men  and  their  agents  —  for  the  large  financial 
interests  of  the  unscrupulous  type  almost  invariably 
work  through  agents  many  of  whom  they  place  or  have 
the  people  place  in  public  positions  —  when  I  repeat, 
the  larger  body  of  citizens  see  to  it  that  these  men  and 
their  agents  are  kept  out  of  public  office  and  relegate 
them  to  the  subordinate  place  where  they  rightly  belong, 
then  we  will  witness  the  full  birth  of  an  entirely  new 
and  a  higher  order  of  patriotism  that  is  soon  to  be 
dominant   among   us. 

The  highest  patriotism  that  I  know  is  that  which 
impels  a  man  to  be  honest,  kind,  hence  thoughtful  in  all 
his  business  relations  and  in  his  daily  life;  that  impels 
him  to  the  primary  and  to  give  attention  to  those  fea- 
tures of  our  political  institutions  that  are  of  even  greater 
consequence  than  his  casting  his  vote  on  election  day; 
[  304  ] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

that  impels  him  to  think  and  to  be  discriminating  in  his 
thought;  that  enables  him  to  be  not  afraid  to  point  out 
and  denounce  the  pure  self-seeker  and  his  demagogic 
ways,  be  he  in  public  life,  in  the  ranks  of  high  standing 
financiers,  or  in  the  ranks  of  organized  labour,  or  in  the 
ranks  of  the  common  life.  The  man  whose  motto  is  not 
"  My  country,  be  she  right  or  be  she  wrong,  but  always 
my  country";  but,  "My  country,  be  she  always  in  the 
right,  and  if  not  in  the  right  then  God  give  me  the  wis- 
dom and  the  courage  to  work  as  a  patriot  to  help  bring 
her  into  the  right,  and  then  may  she  have  every  God- 
given  aid  that  she  may  prevail."  Such  is  the  patriot. 
A  continually  and  rapidly  growing  number  of  such  men 
are  appearing  among  us.  Thus  patriotism  is  witnessing 
the  new  birth. 

It  is  this  patriotism  in  the  common  life  that  is  of  the 
high  quality.  Men  who  are  industrious  and  honest  in 
their  work;  who  are  faithful  to  whatever  tasks  are  im- 
posed upon  them ;  who  are  as  eager  to  give  justice  as  to 
demand  it;  who  are  working  industriously  and  intelli- 
gently in  order  to  take  care  of  themselves  and  those 
dependent  upon  them,  and  thus  remain  self-supporting 
members  of  the  community;  who  remain  brave  and  sweet 
in  their  natures  and  who  abide  always  in  faith  in  face 
of  the  hard  or  uncertain  times  that  come  at  sometime  or 
another  and  in  some  form  or  another  into  the  lives  of 
everyone  of  us;  who  are  jealous  of  their  country's 
honour,  and  of  the  administration  of  its  internal  affairs, 
for  in  the  life  of  the  nation  as  in  the  life  of  the  individual, 
all  life  is  from  within  out,  and  as  is  ihe  inner  so  always 
[305] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

will  be  the  outer.  These  I  repeat,  are  the  men  and  these 
are  the  conditions  that  are  giving  birth  to  that  new  and 
that  higher  order  of  patriotism  that  is   now  coming 
among  us,  and  that  is  to  take  captive  the  hearts  of  men. 
That  wars  in  the  past  have  been,  and  even  at  the 
present  time  are  too   frequent,   all   thinking   men   and 
women  are  agreed.  That  they  are  in  the  great  majority 
of  cases  entirely  inexcusable,  and  that  there  is  and  should 
be  very  little  use  for  military  forces  if  any,  outside  of 
purposes  of   defence,   the  highest  and  most    intelligent 
portion  of  our  citizenship  thoroughly  believes.  And  so 
far  as  effectiveness  is  concerned  it  has  been  proven  time 
and  again,  that  a  citizen  soldiery  is  the  finest  in  the  world. 
Neither  vast  bodies  of  men  drawn  off  from  creative  and 
productive  enterprises   and  made   into  a  professional 
soldier  class,  nor  bodies  of  hirelings,  but  men  who  are 
citizens   of  intelligence  and  training,  and  who  stand 
with  the  ear  ready  for  the  call  to  arms  when  there  is 
just  cause  for  their  hearing  this  call,  such  are  the  intelli- 
gent, such  are  the  brave  and  the  daring,  such  are  the 
most  effective.  Men  will  not  fight  effectively  for  the 
little  price  in  money  they  are  paid.  They  will  not  fight 
effectively  for  the  glory  of  another,  nor  will  they  fight 
effectively  for  a  mere  tract  of  land.  But  where  homes 
are  and  institutions  that  they  love  and  revere  and  care 
for,  then  men  will  fight  with  all  that  triumphant  intelli- 
gence and  all  that  indomitable  daring  that  it  is  possible 
to  call  forth.  With  a  citizen  soldiery  ready  at  the  just  mo- 
ment to  come  from  the  mine,  the  mill,  the  counting-house, 
the  farm,  thousands  of  thousands    or  millions  strong, 
[306] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

why  should  there  be  a  vast  professional  soldiery,  a 
great  non-producing  class  kept  primarily  for  the  glory 
and  to  do  the  bidding  of  a  ruling  class,  but  supported 
almost  entirely  by  the  great  common  people,  that  is 
true  of  the  foolhardy  military  systems  of  various  Euro- 
pean countries  to-day  ?  Then  think  of  the  women  and 
children  by  the  thousands  working  in  the  fields  by  the 
side  of  horses  and  oxen,  and  then  these  vast  armies  of 
non-producers,  and  for  whose  benefit  ?  Royalty,  privilege, 
capitalism  in  government  always  depend  upon  the  mili- 
tary arm  for  their  support  and  at  times  even  for  their 
continued  existence.  When  their  demands  become  too 
great,  however,  and  too  much  dead  or  dead-beat  timber 
is  thrown  before  the  car  of  progress,  then  even  the  sol- 
diery itself  throws  down  its  arms  and  goes  back  to  the 
ranks  and  to  the  cause  of  the  people  whence  they  came. 

The  only  excuse  for  the  present  gigantic  military 
systems  that  are  in  existence  to-day  is  that  out  of  the 
ruling  classes  there  have  not  yet  come  men  of  sufficient 
brains  and  wisdom,  to  meet  similar  men  from  other 
nations,  and  come  to  a  sane  and  common-sense  under- 
standing regarding  their  relations.  From  the  people  as 
democracy  grows,  and  whether  it  take  the  name  or  not, 
are  coming  men  and  forces  that  will  yet  break  this 
hellish  monstrosity  to  a  thousand  pieces  and  will  send 
these  millions  of  men  back  to  the  mills,  to  the  farms, 
back  to  the  homes  that  they  may  be  as  they  should  be, 
producers  and  equal  sharers  in  the  support  of  their 
country. 

No,  it's  intelligence  and  something  to  fight  for  that 
[307] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

constitutes  the  effective  in  distinction  from  the  ineffec- 
tive army  or  navy.  Reference  has  been  made  in  this  part 
to  Russia  and  the  condition  of  her  people  —  the  result 
of  allowing  one  class  to  attend  to  the  affairs  of  the  others 
in  matters  of  government.  This  gives  us  the  basis  for 
an  observation  regarding  her  army  and  navy  in  view 
of  somewhat  recent  events.  Her  navy  was  larger  and 
supposedly  superior  to  that  of  Japan,  her  adversary; 
but  the  larger  portion  of  it  soon  littered  the  bottom  of 
the  sea,  and  it  went  there  because  of  the  superior  in- 
telligence and  hence  ability  of  a  people  whose  govern- 
ment aims  to  make  intelligence  the  common  possession 
of  the  people.  Her  army  was  virtually  defeated  in  every 
engagement,  chiefly  through  the  lack  of  ability  on  the 
part  of  its  officers — for  the  higher  ability  cannot  be  grown 
on  such  soil  —  and  through  the  lack  of  intelligent  and 
hearty  service  on  the  part  of  her  common  soldiery. 
And  this  because  men  who  are  denied  opportunities 
for  the  growth  of  intelligence  and  who  have  no  homes* 
but  who  pay  excessive  tolls  and  taxes  and  fees  to  others, 
can  have  neither  the  power  nor  the  spirit  of  those  who 
have  such  opportunities  and  who  have  homes.  But  the 
deliverance  of  these,  the  patient  Russian  people,  out 
of  the  hell  which  results  when  the  people  allow 
themselves  to  be  ruled  instead  of  taking  the  manage- 
ment of  their  affairs  into  their  own  hands,  is  near 
at  hand. 

Through     the    treatment    the     people     of    Russia 
have    received    in    their   efforts    to    obtain    the    most 
ordinary   rights   of   men,   and   after  exhausting  every 
[308] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

hope  of  peaceable  methods,  they  have  now  declared  war 
to  the  hilt  and  the  great  Revolution  is  on.  There  will  now 
be  no  settlement  and  no  end  until  Bureaucracy,  Czarism 
and  "Holy  Synods"  are  relegated  to  the  place  it  is  a 
wonder  they  were  not  relegated  to  years  ago,  and  a  free 
and  delivered  people  will  stand  as  the  representatives 
of  a  new  nation.  The  same  forces  in  power  in  govern- 
ment that  would  deny  freedom,  or  that  would  take 
freedom  from  the  people,  strangle  all  vitality  and  life 
even  from  the  church,  so  that  it  becomes  a  curse  and 
a  drawback  instead  of  a  blessing. 

Can  it  be  that  because  a  man  is  born  a  ruler  he  is 
born  without  brains,  or  without  brain  power  sufficient 
to  read  and  appreciate  the  writings  that  history  has  so 
often  placed  in  letters  of  blood  before  the  vision  of  the 
world  ? 

Or  can  it  be  that  he  is  born  or  that  he  grows  to  man- 
hood without  powers  of  discernment  sufficient  to  enable 
him  to  discern  the  purposes  and  the  methods  of  a  self- 
constituted  Bureaucracy,  composed  partly  of  a  body 
of  parasitic  Grand  Dukes  and  others  of  a  similar  order, 
which  they  deliberately  plan  in  their  selfish  arrogance  and 
greed  to  surround  him  with  that  he  may  not  know  the 
limits  of  patience  and  the  temper  of  his  people  even  when 
respect  on  their  part  is  turning  to  hatred,  and  hatred 
so  intense  that  it  finally  demands  his  extinction  ?  Can 
it  be  also  that  the  former  become  so  steeped  in  their 
own  methods  of  corruption  and  oppression  that  they 
have  not  discernment  enough  to  know  when  their  end 
is  nearing  and  their  destruction  is  close  at  hand  ?  Or  is 
[309] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

this  the  price  they  finally  pay  for  so  continued  and  so 
brutal  a  disregard  of  all  laws  of  justice  and  equity 
and  humanity? 

"  And  the  struggling  masses  must  suffer  through  the 
greed  of  their  rulers,  who  talk  patriotism,  but  never 
draw  a  sword  themselves  in  defence  of  their  country." 
But,  it  is  said,  suppose  the  ruler  went  to  the  front  and 
harm  or  death  befell  him,  what  then  for  the  country  ? 
Nonsense,  there  isn't  the  King  or  an  Emperor  ruling 
to-day  whose  place  could  not  be  filled,  if  he  fell  on  the 
field  of  battle,  most  ably  by  a  hundred  or  a  thousand 
men  from  his  own  country,  and  in  many  cases  it  must 
be  truthfully  said,  more  ably. 

How  often  also  do  those  that  in  legislative  halls  of 
whatever  nation  talk  and  vote  for  war,  go  to  the  front 
themselves?  Probably  not  one  in  1,000.  Were  those 
who  instigate  or  who  vote  for  it  compelled  to  go,  war 
would  be  most  infrequent.  So  often  those  that  talk  the 
loudest  of  partiotism  in  its  ordinary  sense,  are  the 
greatest  of  cowards.  Hasten  the  day,  which  should  have 
come  long  ago,  when  no  war  can  be  declared  except 
through  a  Plebiscite  of  the  People. 

So  far  then  as  the  soldiery  of  a  nation  is  concerned, 
let  the  interests  of  all  the  people  be  equally  taken  care 
of,  let  there  be  institutions  founded  upon  justice,  upon 
equal  opportunities  for  all  and  special  privileges  for  no 
man,  let  there  be  homes  and  sentiment  encircling  these 
homes,  and  the  keeping  up  of  a  large  military  system 
becomes  but  a  fool's  dream.  There  will  come  from 
such  a  people  a  citizen  soldiery  more  intelligent,  more 
[310] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

brave  and  determined,  and  therefore  more  effective, 
than  can  ever  come  from  any  professional  fighting 
class,  and  at  a  cost  not  a  hundredth  part  as  great. 

Take  sentiment  from  the  battle-field  and  you  take  its 
chief  source  of  heroism  away.  The  people  of  homes  and 
of  just  institutions  are  a  people  of  sentiment.  Upon 
every  cartridge-box  and  upon  every  rifle  and  upon  every 
field  piece  of  such  a  soldiery  the  word  "Invincible  " 
could  most  rightly  be  stamped.  But  of  such  people  and 
such  soldiers  let  it  be  said  to  you,  unscrupulous  financial 
jugglers,  Kings  and  Emperors  and  Grand  Dukes,  beware, 
for  the  people  are  now  beginning  to  know  your  tricks. 
They  know  that  "me  and  mine,"  and  the  ever-ready 
mockery  of  a  trumped  up  patriotism  is  written  all  over 
you,  and  that  had  you  your  way,  you  would  continue 
to  make  dog  soldiers  out  of  great  bodies  of  your  fellow- 
men,  you  would  feed  their  bodies  to  the  vultures  and 
leave  their  families  to  weep  in  sorrow  and  cry  for  bread, 
that  you  might  add  to  your  already  excessive  and  dis- 
honourable gain,  and  continue  to  live  in  luxury  even  to 
your  own  moral  and  physical  deterioration  and  destruc- 
tion. 

The  great  nation  again  is  the  nation  where  that  most 
important  class  in  its  make-up,  that  upon  which  it 
depends  more  than  upon  any  other,  that  that  forms  so  to 
speak  the  backbone  of  its  organism  —  the  farming 
community — grows  and  prospers,  and  has  its  interests 
looked  after  and  looks  after  its  own  interests  more  and 
more.  It  is  to  my  mind  the  most  natural  and  normal 
life  there  is,  and  the  one  —  as  a  general  statement  — 
[3111 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

that  is  or  that  can  be  made  the  most  happy,  and  the 
most  satisfactory,  and  in  honour  second  to  none. 

There  is  already  a  growing  tendency,  and  I  believe 
that  it  will  be  and  should  be  a  continually  increasing 
tendency,  for  young  men  of  ability  and  ambition  to 
remain  on  the  farm,  instead  of  leaving  it  for  supposedly 
superior  callings,  that  is  unless  the  inclination  or  the 
aptitude  lies  so  pronouncedly  along  a  different  line  as 
to  make  another  course  abundantly  advisable. 

Go  then  to  the  school,  the  college,  the  university,  the 
agricultural,  the  horticultural  school,  —  and  with  this 
superior  equipment,  —  go  then  back  to  conduct  a  supe- 
rior type  of  farm.The  outlet  for  your  abilities  will  be  equal 
to  those  abilities,  both  there  and  as  occasion  may  arise. 
The  possibilities  of  soil  cultivation  and  all  things  allied 
to  it  under  more  careful,  more  scientific,  intensive  meth- 
ods, are  hardly  even  dreamed  of  to-day,  notwithstand- 
ing the  great  strides  that  have  been  made  during  the  past 
dozen  years  or  so.  And  our  legislative  halls,  State  and 
National ,  have  never  called  so  loudly  as  they  are  calling 
to-day  for  men  of  such  make-up  as  will  yet  come  to  them 
from  these  superior  types  of  farms.  Nothing  to  my  mind 
could  contribute  more  abundantly  to  the  welfare  of  the 
country  than  the  coming  of  increasingly  large  numbers 
of  these  into  our  legislative  halls.  There  is  perhaps  no 
class  that  has  suffered  economically  more  from  special 
privilege  and  maladministration,  in  short  —  injustice  — 
during  the  past  two  or  three  decades.  In  no  better  way 
could  these  abuses  be  more  effectively  ended.  In  no  way 
could  a  better  balance  be  secured  and  preserved  in  all 
[312] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

matters  of  legislative  policy  and  in  all  matters  of  national 
conduct.  May  there  be  more  organization,  an  ever- 
increasing  intelligence,  more  interest  in  public  affairs, 
and  an  ever  greater  determination  to  have  a  more  equal 
share  in  the  latter,  on  the  part  of  this,  the  most  impor- 
tant of  our  citizenship. 

The  great  nation  is  again  the  nation  in  which  the  man 
of  great  natural  executive  or  financial  ability  finds  con- 
tentment in  a  smaller  amount  of  possessions  for  himself, 
and  the  larger  contentment  and  satisfaction  and  joy  in 
using  that  unusual  ability  in  the  service  of,  for  the  benefit 
of,  his  city,  his  state,  the  nation.  The  wonder  is  that  more 
are  not  doing  this  already.  What  an  influence  a  few  such 
men  could  have,  what  results  they  could  accomplish, 
what  real  riches  they  could  bring  into  their  lives  through 
the  riches  they  would  bring  into  the  lives  of  multitudes 
—  What  gratitude  would  go  to  them ! 

As  men  continue  to  see  the  small  satisfaction  there  is 
in  the  possession  of  great  ability  of  this  nature,  and  in 
the  possession  of  great  wealth  when  divorced  from  an 
adequate  or  even  from  an  abundant  connection  with 
the  interests  and  the  welfare  of  their  fellow-men,  and  as 
they  catch  the  undying  truth  of  the  great  law  of  life 
as  enunciated  by  One  who  though  He  had  not  even 
where  to  lay  His  head  was  greater  than  them  all  —  He 
that  is  greatest  among  you  shall  be  your  servant  —  then 
they  in  company  with  all  men  will  be  the  gainers. 
Think  what  could  be  accomplished  in  the  nation  along 
the  lines  we  have  been  considering  in  this  little  volume 
by  a  company  of  such  men  devoted  to  such  ends. 
[313] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

A  change  is  coming  and  very  rapidly.  The  time  has 
already  arrived  when  we  will  no  longer  look  upon  the 
possession  of  mere  wealth  or  the  ability  to  get  it  as  de- 
serving of  any  special  distinction,  and  especially  when 
the  means  adopted  in  its  acquirement  are  other  than 
those  of  absolute  honour  and  rectitude. 

How  significant  are  the  following  observations  from 
the  New  York  Outlook: 

"  Those  who  have  fallen  most  completely  under  the  spell 
of  fortune-hunting,  and  have  been  consumed  by  the  fever  of 
a  pursuit  which  dries  up  the  very  sources  of  spiritual  life,  can 
no  longer  be  blind  to  the  fact  that  when  great  wealth  ceases  to 
be  associated  with  character,  honour,  genius,  or  public  respect, 
it  is  a  very  shabby  substitute  for  the  thing  men  once  held 
it  to  be.  There  are  hosts  of  honourable  men  of  wealth,  and 
there  are  large  fortunes  which  have  been  honourably  made; 
but  so  much  brutal  indifference  to  the  rights  of  others,  so  much 
tyrannical  use  of  power,  so  much  arbitrary  employment  of 
privilege  without  a  toucli  of  genius,  so  much  cynical  indiffer- 
ence to  human  ties  of  all  kinds,  so  much  vulgar  greed,  have 
come  to  light,  .  .  .  that  the  lustre  has  very  largely  gone 
and  wealth,  as  a  supreme  prize  of  life,  has  immensely  lost 
in  attractive  power.  There  are  hosts  of  young  men  who  are 
ambitious  to  be  rich,  but  who  are  not  willing  to  accept  wealth 
on  such  terms;  the  price  is  too  great,  the  bargain  too  hard." 

Men  of  exceptional  executive  and  financial  ability, 
raise  yourselves  to  the  standing-point  of  real  greatness 
and  use  these  abilities  to  noble  purposes  and  to  undying 
ends  instead  of  piling  a  heap  of  things  together  that 
you'll  soon  have  to  leave  and  that  may  do  those  to  whom 
it  will  go  more  harm  than  good.  The  times  are  chang- 
ing, mankind  is  advancing  and  ascending  to  higher 
[314] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

standing  places,  and  it  will  be  but  a  short  time  when 
your  position  if  maintained  as  at  present  will  be  a  very 
ordinary  one  or  even  a  very  low  one  in  the  public  esteem 
— and  so  will  be  your  memories. 

The  Bishop  of  Exeter  voices  a  well-nigh   universal 
human  cry  at  present  when  he  says : 

Give  us  men ! 

Strong  and  stalwart  ones: 
Men  whom  highest  hope  inspires, 
Men  whom  purest  honour  fires, 
Men  who  trample  Self  beneath  them, 
Men  who  make  their  country  wreathe  them 

As  her  noble  sons, 

Worthy  of  their  sires, 
Men  who  never  shame  their  mothers, 
Men  who  never  fail  their  brothers, 
True,  however  false  are  others: 

Give  us  Men  —  /  say  again, 
Give  us  Men  ! 


[315] 


X 

THE  LIFE  OF  THE  HIGHER  BEAUTY   AND 
POWER 

1  O  be  at  peace.  To  be  happy.  To  live  in  contentment. 
To  have  a  satisfying  and  harmonious  —  a  success- 
ful life.  This  echoes  the  longing  of  perhaps  every  normal 
person.  The  fact  that  it  so  echoes  a  universal  longing, 
indicates,  to  me  at  least,  that  it  should  be  the  natural, 
the  normal  life.  In  order  to  live  a  harmonious  life  there 
must  be  something  to  be  in  harmony  with;  and  here  as 
I  view  it  is  the  great  secret  of  life  and  its  successful  and 
satisfactory  fulfillment. 

That  there  is  a  Spirit  of  intelligence  and  of  love  in 
the  universe,  no  normally  constituted  mind,  and  one 
that  has  lived  at  all  near  the  higher  revelations  that 
may  have  come  to  it,  can  for  a  moment  doubt.  There  is 
a  Power,  beneficent  if  worked  in  harmony  with,  that 
pervades  and  through  the  channel  great  and  definite 
systems  of  law,  governs  the  universe  and  all  that  is  in  it. 
Every  decade  we  are  discovering  new  laws  and  forces, 
and  the  latter  seem  to  be  all  the  time  finer  and  finer  in 
their  nature.  This  is  perhaps  on  account  of  the  process 
of  evolution  so  developing,  so  unfolding  us,  that  we  are 
getting  nearer  and  nearer  to  the  essence,  the  inner 
nature  —  the  soul  of  things. 
[316] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

What  was  the  actual  beginning  of  things  no  man 
knows.  Nor  is  it  essential  or  important  that  we  do  know. 
But  in  the  beginning,  as  now  was  Being,  self-existent 
and  all-pervading  —  the  Spirit  of  Infinite  Life  and 
Power  that  is  back  of  all,  working  in  and  through  all, 
the  source,  the  life  of  all.  This  seems  to  be  a  self-evident 
fact  —  Infinite  Being  projecting  itself  into  ex-istence, 
therefore  the  spirit,  the  substance,  the  life  of  all  there  is. 
Various  terms  or  names  are  used  by  different  minds; 
but  to  me  this  Infinite  Being  is  God.  To  know  this  as 
our  source,  the  very  essence  of  our  being  and  from 
which  or  from  whom  we  can  be  cut  off,  can  separate 
ourselves,  only  to  our  detriment,  is  to  recognize  our- 
selves as  spiritual  beings;  it  is  to  be  born  into  the  spiritual 
life,  and  the  spiritual  life  is  the  life  eternal.  Thus  we 
come  to  know  God  in  the  degree  that  we  realize  that  in 
Him  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being.  In  the  de- 
gree that  we  live  in  the  realization  of  this  truth,  does 
this  spirit  of  Infinite  Life  and  Power  reveal  itself  to  our 
consciousness  more  and  more,  and  it  is  in  this  way  that 
we  grow  and  unfold  in  the  spiritual  life. 

It  is  through  great  systems  of  law,  definite  and  im- 
mutable, that  God  or  Infinite  Being  works.  To  know 
these  laws  and  to  live,  to  work  in  harmony  with  them 
brings  peace  and  harmony;  wilfully  to  violate  them 
brings  inharmony  and  struggle  and  suffering.  They 
all  work  together  for  good.  To  live  in  harmony  with 
them  can  bring  us  only  good.  To  fail  to  recognize  or 
wilfully  to  violate  them  brings  necessarily  the  opposite 
of  good,  namely  evil.  Evil  has  its  origin  properly  speak- 
[317] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

ing  not  in  God,  but  from  a  violation  of  the  laws,  shall  we 
say,  the  ordinances  of  God. 

To  realize  that  in  essence,  though  not  in  degree,  we 
are  one  with  the  life  of  God,  and  then  to  open  ourselves, 
our  minds  and  our  hearts,  so  that  a  continually  increas- 
ing degree  of  the  God  life  can  manifest  itself  to  and 
through  us,  is  to  understand  more  and  more  and  to 
come  into  a  continually  greater  harmony  with  the  laws 
under  which  we  live  and  which  permeate  and  rule  in 
the  universe  with  an  unchangeable  precision.  It  is 
through  our  non-recognition  of  the  life  that  is  in  us  and 
the  laws  by  which  all  things  are  governed,  in  other 
words,  living  out  of  harmony  with  the  laws  under  which 
it  is  decreed  we  must  live,  that  inharmony  and  evil 
with  its  consequent  pain  and  suffering  and  despair 
enters  into  our  lives.  There  are  those  who  have  lived  so 
fully  in  the  realization  of  their  essential  oneness  with 
the  Divine  Life,  that  their  lives  here  have  been  almost 
a  continual  song  of  peace  and  thanksgiving. 

As  individuals  —  expressions  of  Being  projected  into 
existence  —  we  are  given  the  power  of  choice.  We  can 
choose  to  open  ourselves  so  fully  to  the  realization  of 
the  Source  of  our  life  and  open  ourselves  so  fully  to  its 
imflux  that  we  will  find  the  attributes  of  this  life  mani- 
festing, incarnating  themselves  more  and  more  in  our 
lives,  so  that  in  time  we  take  on  more  and  more  the 
wisdom,  the  insight  and  the  powers  of  this  Life.  In  this 
way  we  are  gradually  changed  from  the  natural  to  the 
spiritual,  from  earth-men  to  God-men,  thus  fulfilling 
the  undoubted  purpose  of  our  being  —  divine  self- 
[318] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

realization,  and  the  returning  to  that  from  which  we 
came.  Coming  as  babes,  returning  as  fully  grown  spirit- 
ual beings,  gaining  our  experience  in  contact  with  this 
material  world  through  the  agency  of  the  material  body 
and  for  some  purpose  of  which  we  do  not  yet  know, 
but  that  shall  be  revealed  to  us  in  due  process  of  time- 
What  it  is,  cannot  concern  us  materially  now.  This  will 
come  when  we  are  ready  for  it.  To  know  the  laws  under 
which  we  are  living  and  to  bring  our  lives  into  an  ever 
completer  harmony  with  them  is  what  concerns  us  now. 
Step  by  step  in  this  as  in  all  things. 

But  to  know  God's  laws  is  first  to  know  the  life  of 
God  in  us.  To  live  then  in  harmony  with  these  laws 
and  thus  to  reap  the  results  that  follow  naturally  and 
unerringly  from  this  course,  is  the  part  of  the  wise.  To 
separate  ourselves  from  the  life  of  God,  to  lose  there- 
fore the  guiding  wisdom  that  is  its  attribute,  to  fail  to 
live  in  harmony  with  these  laws,  and  to  be  battered  and 
buffetted  about  as  is  invariably  the  result  of  the  violation 
of  law,  until  through  this  hard  process  we  are  finally 
driven  into  harmony  with  the  laws  of  God,  is  the  part 
of  the  unwise,  the  fool.  The  laws  will  have  obedience  and 
there  has  never  been  a  man  or  a  woman  powerful 
enough  or  rich  enough  or  unique  enough  to  violate  them 
without  suffering  sooner  or  later  the  inevitable  results. 
Many  have  sought  to  do  so  but  have  learned  their  lesson  in 
sorrow,  in  anguish,  in  humiliation.  We  go  voluntarily  and 
of  our  own  accord,  or  we  are  pushed  and  taught  through 
suffering.  God  will  have  obedience.  To  know  God  is  to 
know  His  laws;  for  His  laws  are  written  in  the  heart  of  man- 
[319] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

By  dwelling  continually  in  this  life  of  God  we  come 
into  that  condition  where  we  are  led  more  and  more 
by  the  Divine  guidance,  where  the  Divine  wisdom  and 
power  and  life  so  manifest  and  illumine  our  being 
and  through  this  our  understanding  that  we  know  more 
and  more  to  do  the  right  thing  at  the  right  time;  and 
for  such,  to  know  is  to  do.* 

While  the  end  of  life  is  not  attained  through  intellec- 
tual processes  alone,  the  mind,  the  intellect  neverthe- 
less is  a  means  to  this  end.  It  is  through  the  mind  that 
the  connection  is  made  between  the  human  and  the 
Divine.  It  is  through  thought  operating  through  the 
channel  of  the  mind  that  we  are  able  to  realize  and  keep 
our  connection  with  Infinite  Being,  our  source.  It  is  by 
virtue  of  the  mind,  working  through  the  brain,  that  we 
are  connected  with  the  material,  physical  universe. 
The  body  is  material,  physical.  Every  particle  of  it, 
through  the  food  we  take,  is  from  the  earth  and  the  air 
and  to  the  earth  and  the  air  every  particle  of  it  finally 
returns. 

To  realize  that  the  body  is  not  the  self,  but  the  in- 
strument by  which  the  self  is  temporarily  related  to, 
and  made  able  to  manifest  and  live  in  a  material  world 
for  the  purpose  of  experience,  growth,  development, 
is  a  great  aid  in  arriving  at  the  realities  of  life.  The  folly 
then  of  giving  supreme  attention  to  it  and  the  things 

*  For  suggestions  as  to  the  method  of  entering  into  this  higher 
realization,  as  also  for  a  much  fuller  portrayal  of  its  results  in  every- 
day life,  the  reader  is  directed  to  the  volume  by  the  same  author 
entitled,  "In  Tune  with  the  Infinite,  or,  Fullness  of  Peace,  Power, 
and  Plenty." 

[320] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

that  pertain  to  it.  To  give  it  sufficient  attention  to  en- 
able it  to  become  the  clearest,  the  soundest,  the  most  perfect 
instrument  that  it  can  be  made  and  kept  for  the  real 
self  to  use,  is  the  part  of  wisdom,  for  it  is  the  true  middle 
ground. 

Now,  why  all  this,  I  hear  it  asked,  in  a  book  of  this 
nature?  In  order  to  get  a  basis  in  religion,  in  phil- 
osophy, in  reality,  for  life,  for  the  individual  life;  and 
as  is  the  individual  life  so  is  the  national  life,  never 
higher,  never  lower.  As  Dr.  Patton,  formerly  president 
of  Princeton  University  once  said  to  a  class  of  young 
graduates : 

"Religion  is  the  goal  of  culture,  and  the  educated 
man  must  stand  in  some  relation  to  God.  He  must 
have  some  philosophy  of  human  life,  some  theory  of 
society."  And  as  Milton  has  said:  "There  is  nothing 
that  makes  men  rich  and  strong  but  that  which  they 
carry  inside  of  them.  Wealth  is  of  the  heart,  not  of  the 
hand."  And  as  Mazzini  once  said:  "Where  there  is  no 
vision  the  people  perish." 

The  chase  for  the  material  has  of  late  years  become 
so  great  and  so  absorbing,  whether  by  fair  means  or 
foul,  that  it  has  become  one  of  the  notorious  features 
or  characteristics  of  the  time.  And  while  I  believe  the 
heart  of  the  people,  and  the  heart  of  the  nation  is  sound, 
by  virtue  of  the  vastly  superior  numbers  of  splendid, 
honest,  unpurchasable  and  high-minded  men  and 
women  among  us,  both  old  and  young,  a  strong  material- 
istic tendency  is  nevertheless  a  marked  characteristic 
of  the  time.  As  there  is  perhaps  no  greater  truth  in 
[321] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

connection  with  human  life  than  —  As  a  man  thinketh 
in  his  heart  so  is  he,  and  also,  that  we  grow  into  the 
likeness  of  those  things  we  most  habitually  contemplate, 
and  also  that  all  life  is  from  within  out,  for  as  is  the  inner, 
so  always  and  necessarily  will  be  the  outer,  it  becomes 
clearly  apparent  how  essential  that  the  right  centre  or 
basis  of  life  be  established.  We  hear  it  often  said,  and 
said  in  the  most  well  meaning  way,  that  the  physical, 
the  material,  is  the  basis  of  life.  Now  I  would  put  it  in 
another  way,  a  safer  and  I  think  a  truer  way.  The  spirit- 
ual is  the  basis  and  the  end  of  life,  and  the  physical, 
the  material,  is  the  channel  through  which  it  manifests 
and  works  and  unfolds  and  masters.  The  latter  is  not 
to  be  despised  or  slighted,  but  to  be  used,  to  be  wisely 
used,  but  to  be  subordinated  to  its  proper  place.  Thus 
it  becomes  a  great  blessing  and  helper  rather  than  a 
hindrance  and  a  curse.  To  have  an  abundance  of  the 
world's  goods  is  good  if  rightly  used,  but  to  make  the 
accumulation  of  material  things  the  chief  object  of  life 
can  end  only  in  disappointment.  Such  have  but  a 
pinched  and  stunted  life  which  is  unsatisfactory  and 
empty  of  joy  to  themselves,  and  except  by  way  of 
warning  is  of  but  little  if  any  value  to  the  world. 

Each  one  must  find  a  centre  for  life  from  which  all 
radiates,  or,  putting  it  in  another  way,  a  basis,  a  founda- 
tion upon  which  all  else  is  built.  Such  a  centre  or  such  a 
basis,  one  that  is  true  and  satisfactory,  is  earnestly 
longed  for  by  myriads  of  people.  An  instinct  for  the 
religious  life  is  born  in  practically  every  human  soul. 
So  many  great  chunks  as  the  years  have  passed,  have 
[322] 


In  tne  Fire  of  the  Heart 

fallen  away  from  our  theological  systems,  and  as  many 
chunks  are  still  continually  falling  away  from  them 
that  it  is  hard  or  well-nigh  impossible  for  an  earnest, 
mentally  honest  man  to  find  any  satisfactory  or  even  ac- 
ceptable basis  for  the  religious  life  there.  Such  in  com- 
mon with  all  others  will  find  that  the  uniform  teaching 
of  all  the  most  inspired  teachers  in  the  world's  history, 
whatever  the  religion  or  system  of  belief  has  been,  is 
that  the  essence,  the  suostance  of  all  true  religion  is, 
the  Consciousness  of  God  in  the  soul  of  man.  The  ration- 
al basis  for  this  I  have  endeavoured  to  point  out  in  the 
early  pages  of  this  chapter.  "  In  Him  we  live  and  move 
and  have  over  being. "  In  what  a  homely,  splendid  way 
John  Tauler  has  put  it  in  the  following: 

"I  have  a  power  in  my  soul  which  enables  me  to  perceive 
God:  I  am  as  certain  as  that  I  live  that  nothing  is  so  near  to 
me  as  God.  He  is  nearer  to  me  than  I  am  to  myself.  It  is  part 
of  His  very  essence  that  He  should  be  nigh  and  present  to 
me.  .  .  .  And  a  man  is  more  blessed  or  less  blessed  in 
the  same  measure  as  he  is  aware  of  the  presence  of  God." 

"God  made  us  for  Himself,  and  our  hearts  are  rest- 
less until  they  repose  in  Him,"  was  St.  Augustine's 
way  of  putting  it.  "  The  only  death  to  be  feared 
is  unconsciousness  of  the  presence  of  God,"  said 
Paracelsus.  "That  the  Divine  Life  and  Energy 
actually  lives  in  us  is  inseparable  from  Religion," 
was  the  keynote  to  the  philosophy  of  that  most 
spiritual  of  philosophers,  Fichte.  "An  insight  into  the 
absolute  unity  of  the  Human  Existence  with  the 
Divine  is  certainly  the  profoundest  knowledge  that  man 
[323] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

can  attain,"  said  he  again.  It  was  the  most  inspired 
who  has  yet  lived  among  us  who  said:  "  Neither  shall 
they  say,  Lo  here !  or,  Lo  there !  for,  behold  the  King- 
dom of  God  is  within  you.  "  And  again:  "  Seek  ye  first 
the  Kingdom  of  God,  and  His  righteousness,  and  all 
these  things  shall  be  added  unto  you."  It  was  He 
who  gave  the  substance  of  the  moral  law  and  therefore 
the  essence  of  religion  as  —  Love  to  God  and  love  to 
the  fellow-man. 

To  me  love  to  God  is  this  dwelling  continually  in  the 
conscious  living  realization  of  the  essential  oneness  of 
our  life  with  the  Divine  Life  —  Seeking  to  have  no 
other  will  than  that  the  Divine  will  may  manifest  to  and 
may  work  through  us.  How  significant  then  —  "  Thou 
wilt  keep  him  in  perfect  peace,  whose  mind  is  stayed 
on  Thee, "  and  also  "  In  all  thy  ways  acknowledge  Him, 
and  He  shall  direct  thy  paths. "  How  truly  in  the  light 
of  this  truth  does  Fichte  say  that  the  expression  of  the 
constant  mind  of  the  truly  religious  man  is  this  prayer : 
"  Lord !  let  but  Thy  will  be  done,  then  is  mine  also  done; 
for  I  have  no  other  will  than  this  —  that  Thy  will  be 
done."  And  how  thoroughly  in  keeping  with  —  "Thou 
wilt  keep  him  in  perfect  peace,  whose  mind  is  stayed  on 
Thee,"  is  his  thought  in  the  following: 

"Whatever  comes  to  pass  around  him,  nothing  appears 
to  him  strange  or  unaccountable  —  he  knows  assuredly, 
whether  he  understand  it  or  not,  that  it  is  in  God's  World, 
and  that  there  nothing  can  be  that  does  not  directly  tend  to 
good.  In  him  there  is  no  fear  for  the  future,  for  the  absolute 
fountain  of  all  blessedness  eternally  bears  him  on  towards  it; 
no  sorrow  for  the  past,  for  in  so  far  as  he  was  not  in  God  he 
[324] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
was  nothing,  and  this  is  now  at  an  end,  and  since  he  has 
dwelt  in  God  he  has  been  born  into  light;  while  in  so  far  as 
he  was  in  God,  that  which  he  has  done  is  assuredly  right  and 
good.  .  .  .  His  whole  outward  existence  flows  forth,  softly 
and  gently,  from  his  Inward  Being,  and  issues  out  into  Reality 
without  difficulty  or  hindrance.  " 

Love  to  the  fellow-man  is  the  realization  of  the  fact 
that  we  are  all  parts  of  the  one  great  whole,  that  the 
source  and  essence  of  life  in  each  is  essentially  the  same, 
that  love  is  the  established  law  of  life,  and  that  the  law 
will  have  obedience  or  it  will  strike  its  punishment  upon 
all  who  do  violence  to  it. 

"He  that  loveth  not  his  brother,  abideth  in  death," 
said  the  Master  Teacher,  and  this  is  simply  the  enun- 
ciation of  the  law  that's  written  deep  in  the  universe 
and  immutable  in  its  workings. 

"All  beings  are  the  fruits  of  one  tree,  the  leaves  of  one 
branch,  tne  drops  of  one  sea.  Honour  is  for  him  who  loveth 
men,  not  for  mm  who  loveth  his  own,"  says  the  Persian. 

Truly  we  are  all  parts  of  the  one  great  whole,  and  one 
can't  suffer  or  have  injustice  done  him  without  all 
sharing  in  that  suffering  and  none  more  than  the  author 
of  that  injustice. 

It  was  by  virtue  of  His  perceiving  so  clearly  the  laws 
in  relation  to  human  life  that  are  so  immutable  in  their 
workings  that  enabled  and  prompted  Jesus  to  give 
anew  to  the  world  an  epitome  of  the  laws  relating  to 
all  human  relations  when  He  said,  "And  as  ye  would 
that  men  should  do  to  you,  do  ye  also  to  them  likewise." 
It  is  what  is  ordinarily  termed  the  Golden  Rule.  I 
have  never  seen  any  wiser  or  more  suggestive  com- 
[325] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 
mentary  upon  it  than  the  following,  by  the  late  Hon. 
Samuel  Milton  Jones*: 

"As  I  view  it,  the  Golden  Rule  is  the  supreme  law  of  life. 
It  may  be  paraphrased  this  way:  As  you  do  unto  others, 
others  will  do  unto  you.  What  I  give,  I  get.  If  I  love  you 
really  and  truly  and  actively  love  you,  you  are  as  sure  to  love 
me  in  return  as  the  earth  is  sure  to  be  warmed  by  the  rays  of 
the  midsummer  sun.  If  I  hate  you,  illtreat  you  and  abuse  you, 
I  am  equally  certain  to  arouse  the  same  kind  of  antagonism 
towards  me,  unless  the  Divine  nature  is  so  developed  that  it 
is  dominant  in  you,  and  you  have  learned  to  love  your 
enemies.  What  can  be  plainer.  The  Golden  Rule  is  the  law  of 
action  and  reaction  in  the  field  of  morals,  just  as  definite,  just 
as  certain  here  as  the  law  is  definite  and  certain  in  the  domain 
of  physics.  I  think  the  confusion  with  respect  to  the  Golden 
Rule  arises  from  the  different  conceptions  that  we  have  of 
the  word  love.  I  use  the  word  love  as  synonymous  with 
reason,  and  so  when  I  speak  of  doing  the  loving  thing,  I 
mean  the  reasonable  thing.  When  I  speak  of  dealing  with  my 
fellow-men  in  an  unreasonable  way,  I  mean  an  unloving  way. 

*Mayor  Jones  of  Toledo  was  to  my  mind  one  of  the  most  significant 
men  politically  that  our  country  has  yet  known.  A  man  who  believed 
in  actually  adopting  the  law  of  life  as  enunciated  in  the  Golden 
Rule  as  a  basis  for  personal  action  and  for  the  administration  of 
public  affairs.  A  man  who  used  public  office  only  for  the  highest 
public  good.  A  man  whom  the  people  therefore  so  trusted  that, 
running  as  an  independent  candidate  against  the  candidates  of  the 
two  dominant  political  parties,  he  was  able  to  pole  a  vote  of  nearly 
17,000  out  of  a  total  voting  number  of  24,000.  It  is  rather  sig- 
nificant, isn't  it  ?  —  and  this  against  the  combined  and  determined 
efforts  of  the  machines  of  both  political  parties,  both  local  and  state, 
and  in  face  of  the  united  opposition  of  all  the  newspapers  and  cor- 
porations in  the  city,  and  not  a  few  of  the  "eminently  respectable 
people. "  So  far  as  his  influence  upon  the  political  future  is  concerned, 
as  it  will  be,  even  as  it  is  being  already,  carried  into  activity  by 
younger  men  who  are  coming  into  the  field  of  political  action,  it  is 
unquestionably  true  that  no  greater  or  more  valuable  man  has  ever 
come  from  or  been  associated  with  the  State  of  Ohio. 

[326] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

The  terms  are  interchangeable  absolutely.  The  reason  why 
we  know  so  little  about  the  Golden  Rule  is  because  we  have 
not  practised  it. " 

Yes,  what  we  term  the  Golden  Rule  is  an  absolute 
law  of  life,  and  it  will  have  obedience  through  the  joy, 
and  therefore  the  gain  it  brings  into  our  lives  if  we 
observe  it,  or  it  will  have  obedience  by  the  pain  and 
the  blankness  it  drives  into  our  lives  if  we  violate  it. 
As  we  give  to  the  world  so  the  world  gives  back  to  us. 
Thoughts  are  forces,  like  inspires  like  and  like  creates 
like.  If  I  give  love  I  inspire  and  receive  love  in  re- 
turn. If  I  give  hatred  I  inspire  and  I  receive  hatred. 
The  wise  man  loves;  only  the  ignorant,  the  selfish,  the 
fool,  hates. 

It  is  the  man  who  loves  and  serves  who  has  solved 
the  riddle  of  life,  for  into  his  life  comes  the  fulness, 
the  satisfaction,  the  peace  and  the  joy  that  the  Law 
decrees.  He  it  is  who  is  the  wise  man. 

The  man  who  has  no  sense  of  service  to  his  fellow- 
man,  whose  idea  is  primarily  gain  for  himself,  whether 
honourable  or  dishonourable,  is  the  supreme  fool  in  life 
by  virtue  of  his  ignorance  leading  him  into  the  violation 
of  a  law  that  condemns  him  to  a  pinched,  a  stunted, 
sunless,  joyless  life. 

"If  the  gatherer  gathers  too  much,"  says  Emerson,  "na- 
ture takes  out  of  the  man  what  she  puts  into  his  chest; 
swells  the  state  but  kills  the  owner.  Nature  hates  monopolies 
and  exceptions. " 

We  do  well  when  we  remember    this  —  one    can 
never  do  an  injury  to  another  without  in  some  form 
[327] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

or  another  suffering  for  that  injury  himself.  Why  ?  It 
is  so  written  in  the  Law  of  the  Universe,  that's  all.  And 
we  do  likewise  well  to  remember  —  one  can  never  do 
a  real  loving,  unselfish,  kindly  act  without  deriving  a 
benefit  from  such  act  himself;  and  if  at  any  time  there 
are  apparent  exceptions  to  this  it  is,  I  believe,  because 
our  limited  vision  does  not  enable  us  to  see  the  total 
relationship  of  human  actions. 

"No  man  in  the  world  ever  attempted  to  wrong 
another  without  being  injured  in  return, —  some  way, 
somehow,  sometime.  The  only  weapon  of  offence  that 
nature  seems  to  recognize  is  the  boomerang.  Nature 
keeps  her  books  admirably;  she  puts  down  every  item, 
she  closes  all  accounts  finally,  but  she  does  not  always 
balance  them  at  the  end  of  the  month."* 

As  the  life  of  a  man  is  of  more  value  to  him  than  the 
house  in  which  he  lives,  so  the  possession  and  growth 
of  the  faculties  that  enable  him  to  enjoy  the  things  that 
pertain  to  and  that  spring  from  the  inner  life  are  of 
more  value  to  him  by  way  of  bringing  him  happiness 
and  contentment  than  any  possible  accumulation  of 
material  things.  Wealth  is  good  —  as  a  means  to  com- 
fort; good  as  a  servant,  never  as  a  master;  good  as  a 
feature,  never  as  the  chief  end  of  life. 

One  of  the  most  pitiable  sights  that  I  know  is  the 
way  some  very  rich  men  die;  several  such  deaths  have 
transpired  during  even  the  past  year.  Let  the  following 
serve  as  the  type  of  many.  A  man  has  made  gain  — 

*  From  that  excellent  little  booklet  "  The  Majesty  of  Calmness," 
by  William  George  Jordan. 

[328] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

money-getting  —  the  chief  object  of  his  life.  In  time, 
shall  we  say  through  nature's  abhorrence  of  abnormal- 
ities, the  greed  for  gain  becomes  his  master  and  dries 
up  his  very  powers  of  enjoyment  of  the  finer  things 
in  life.  He  accumulates  a  hundred  million,  with  all 
the  care  and  worry  that  keeping  this  invested  to  the 
best  advantage  means.  He  is  of  but  little  use  to  the 
world,  and  through  the  dwarfing  of  the  finer  qualities 
of  his  life  and  the  drying  up  of  his  powers  of  enjoyment 
he  has  become  so  also  to  himself.  He  dies.  Three  months 
after  he  has  gone  his  name  is  scarcely  ever  heard, 
except  perhaps  in  some  long  drawn  out  or  bitterly  fought 
will  contest.  His  end  is  like  that  of  a  dog.  In  short, 
many  a  dog,  faithful  and  intelligent  and  useful,  has  been 
more  genuinely  mourned  and  longer  and  more  grate- 
fully remembered.  And  then  if  it  is  true,  as  I  believe 
it  must  be,  that  we  commence  in  the  other  form  of  life 
exactly  where  we  leave  off  here,  taking  with  us  only 
what  we  have  gained  by  way  of  soul  growth  and 
spiritual  unfoldment,  but  not  one  cent,  not  one  cent, 
and  having,  moreover,  no  further  control  over  any  ma- 
terial possessions,  how  poor,  how  pitiably  poor  is  such 
a  life.  Contrast  it  with  this  as  an  ideal  and  a  purpose 
for  a  life: 

"I  am  primarily  engaged  to  myself  to  be  a  public  servant 
of  all  the  Gods,  to  demonstrate  to  all  men  there  is  good -will 
and  intelligence  at  the  heart  of  things  and  ever  higher  and 
yet  higher  leadings.  These  are  my  engagements.  If  there  be 
power  in  good  intentions,  in  fidelity,  and  in  toil,  the  north 
wind  shall  be  purer,  the  stars  in  heaven  shall  glow  with  a 
kindler  beam  that  I  have  lived. " 

I  329  1 


In  the  Fire  of  Hie  Heart 

And  what  a  life  was  the  life  of  this  man  Emerson  who 
deliberately  chose  this  as  his  part.  And  what  an  in- 
fluence while  he  lived,  and  truly  for  all  time  to  come. 
Not  three  months,  nor  three  centuries  can  forget  his 
name  or  cease  to  bless  his  memory. 

Another  whom  success  in  the  sense  of  excessive  gain 
develops  pride  and  an  itchiness  for  ostentatious  show 
builds  a  mansion  —  a  home  ?  costing  four  million  dol- 
lars, thinking  also  that  it  will  be  a  sort  of  monument  to,  a 
reminder  of  himself.  Within  fifty  years,  or  within  even 
a  much  shorter  space  of  time,  it  may  be  the  possession 
of  a  Barnum  and  the  home  of  a  good  up-to-date  circus. 
Such  is  the  security  of  a  man's  hold  upon  material 
possessions.  And  how  few  seem  to  be  able  to  stand  suc- 
cess and  remain  good,  healthy,  sensible,  normal  men.  It 
seems  strange  that  so  seldom  can  a  man  become  success- 
ful as  to  either  wealth  or  power  without  taking  on, 
mentally  at  least,  the  strut  of  the  turkey-cock.  A  really 
great  man,  however,  is  always  immune  from  this  affection. 
It  is  rather  as  Pope  said: 

Of  all  the  causes  which  conspire  to  blind 
Mans  erring  judgment,  and  mislead  the  mind, 
What  the  weak  head  with  strongest  bias  rules, 
Is  Pride  —  that  never-failing  vice  of  fools. 

The  law  seems  to  be  absolute  in  that  "  whosoever  shall 
exalt  himself  shall  be  abased ;  and  he  that  humbleth  him- 
self shall  be  exalted."  Nature  seems  to  abhor  an 
abnormally  developed  pride,  snobbery,  too  marked  a 
consciousness  of  superiority.  And  to  the  —  I  am  holier 
[330] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

than    thou    feeling  —  she    applies    always  the   brand, 
Hypocrite,  and  she  burns  it  deep. 

Another  makes  the  accumulation  of  material  things 
the  chief  object  of  his  life,  rising  from  humble  circum- 
stances, possessing  unusual  abilities,  but  giving  but  an 
infinitesimal  amount  of  these  abilities  to  his  city  or 
his  state,  both  badly  in  need  of  such  service ;  but  rather 
conspiring  with  their  enemies  to  make  special  privileges 
for  a  few  greater,  to  secure  acts  alienating  valuable 
properties  from  the  people  of  his  city  and  state,  to  avoid 
a  just  share  of  taxation,  thereby  defrauding  and  throw- 
ing greater  and  unjust  burdens  upon  all  of  his  fellow- 
men,  except  upon  those  equally  dishonest  and  contempt- 
ible in  this  practice  of  tax-evasion.  His  life  here  closes 
considerably  before  a  normal  and  well-rounded  life 
should  close,  and  on  quitting  he  directs  that  prac- 
tically the  entire  results  of  his  life  work  go  to  a  couple 
of  young  grandsons,  not  yet  in  their  teens,  in  order 
that  the  family  name  and  business  be  preserved. 
"  Every  man,"  said  Marcus  Aurelius,  "  is  worth 
just  so  much  as  the  things  are  worth  about  which 
he  busies  himself. "  The  business  may  be  preserved 
or  it  may  tumble  into  ruin.  Nature  deals  so  in 
mockery  when  a  man  fancies  he  can  have  a  con- 
trolling hand  in  the  final  actual  disposition  of  his 
material  possessions.  The  family  name  may  be 
preserved  and  it  may  be  raised  even  to  a  higher 
esteem,  or  it  may  be  preserved  in  the  records  of  an 
inebriate  asylum.  A  man  can  have  an  actual  say 
only  in  regard  to  his  own  life,  but  never  in  regard  to 
[331] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

the    life   of   any   other.    Not   by   ambition   and    gain 
alone  for  self  but, 

"By  labor,  incessant  and  devout,  to  raise  earth  to  heaven, 
to  realize,  in  fact,  the  good  that  as  yet  exists  only  in  idea  — 
that  is  the  end  and  purpose  of  human  life;  and  in  fulfilling 
it  we  achieve  and  maintain  our  unity  each  with  every  other 
and  all  with  the  Divine." 

Many  a  rich  man's  son  has  found  the  handicap  of 
great  riches  too  great  to  allow  his  making  even  a  decent 
success  of  life ;  the  incentive  which  nature  seems  to  have 
decreed  as  a  healthy  and  strength-developing  stimulant 
has  been  neutralized  by  the  burden  which  an  over-rich 
father  has  dumped  upon  him.  "Ungirt  loins,  unlit  lamps, 
unused  talents,  sink  a  man  like  lead.  Doing  nothing  is 
enough  for  ruin. "  Many  a  daughter  of  the  unduly 
rich  has  found  her  associations  as  also  her  training 
or  lack  of  training  of  such  a  nature  that  undue  pride 
or  a  false  ambition  has  taken  possession  of  her,  robbing 
her  of  one  of  the  chief  charms  of  womanhood,  and  a 
designing  or  worse  than  empty  marriage  has  fallen  to  her 
portion.  Surely  wealth  is  of  the  mind  and  the  heart  and 
not  of  the  hand.  And  the  man  who  makes  as  his  life  work 
only  gain  for  self  and  who  fails  to  recognize  his  inexor- 
able relations  with  his  fellow-men,  fails  completely  in 
getting  from  life  what  he  thinks  he'll  get;  for  he  finds 
that  what  he  gains  turns  to  a  greater  or  less  extent  to 
ashes  in  his  hands,  and  what  he  bequeaths  to  his  descen- 
dants is  far  below  what  it  might  be,  —  he  or  she  who 
is  at  all  worthy  of  receiving  such  bequest  would  rather 
it  be  a  few  millions  less  and  be  accompanied  with  a 
[332] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

name  of  honour  and  a  memory  to  be  revered  than 
that  it  come  with  the  tremendous  handicap  it  many 
times  comes  with. 

As  we  come  to  a  fuller  appreciation  of  these  facts 
and  of  the  laws  of  human  life  and  relations  that  will 
not  be  denied,  then  more  and  more  will  "  we  measure 
the  degree  of  civilization  not  by  accumulation  of  the 
means  of  living,  but  by  the  character  and  value  of  the 
life  lived." 

Now  I  have  said,  nor  would  I  say  ought  against  wealth. 
I  believe  in  wealth  —  sufficient  for  all  the  legitimate 
comforts  of  life ;  and  I  believe  in  it  so  thoroughly  that  I 
plead  for  a  state  wherein  it  can  become  the  portion  of  a 
much  larger  number  than  has  ever  yet  been  known. 
And  while  I  do  not  share  in  the  belief  that  our  time  is 
necessarily  more  materialistic  than  other  times  have 
been,  I  do  realize  and  most  keenly  that  the  economic 
conditions  during  the  past  few  years  have  produced  a 
class  of  men  so  materialistic  in  their  entire  outlook, 
so  insatiate  in  their  greed  for  ever  larger  gain,  so  drunk 
with  opportunity  and  power  that  they  would  pull  the 
very  pillars  of  the  state  to  the  ground  if  a  united  and 
determined  people  did  not  come  forward  and  say, 
so  far,  and  no  farther.  It  is  against  the  aggressions  of 
these  and  the  abuses  we  have  permitted  them  to  give 
birth  to  and  fatten  upon,  the  aggressions  of  these  against 
the  welfare  of  their  fellows,  against  the  economic  and 
political  institutions  of  the  nation,  that  we  must  battle 
for  some  time  to  come  with  an  alertness,  with  a  determin- 
ation and  a  bravery  that  can  know  no  defeat. 
[333] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

In  the  fire  of  the  heart,  and  with  a  mind  calm  and 
determined  and  with  malice  towards  none,  must  these 
great  battles  for  the  redemption  of  this  nation  be  fought. 
And  as  excessive  wealth  is  of  no  real  value  to  any  man 
nor  to  his  descendants,  but  becomes  more  often  a  veritable 
curse,  and  as  it  makes  its  possessors  a  menace  to  the 
very  welfare  of  the  nation  and  to  the  welfare  of  every 
man,  woman  and  child  in  the  nation,  we  will  be  doing 
a  twofold  service  through  such  warfare  and  subse- 
quent vigilance  in  saving  its  possessors  and  its  would-be 
possessors  from  their  own  folly,  as  well  as  conserving 
our  own  common  interests.  It's  the  middle  ground  that 
carries  with  it  the  satisfactory  solution  of  life.  Excesses 
have  to  be  paid  for  with  heavy  and  sometimes  with 
frightful  interest. 

Life,  the  life  of  everyone  has  its  perplexities,  its 
problems,  its  struggles  and  its  work  to  be  done.  Human- 
ity is  brave  and  there  are  but  few  who  do  not  stand  up 
like  men  and  women,  some  almost  like  very  Gods  to 
the  end.  It  certainly  should  be  the  aim  of  each  to  throw 
no  hindrance  in  the  path  of  any  fellow-being,  to  make 
no  load  heavier;  but  rather  to  lend  the  hand  whenever 
we  can. 

Oh  the  skies  are  blue  and  a  ribboned  road 

Shall  the  •pilgrim's  heart  beguile : 
Yet  hurry  not  so  fast  with  your  load, 

For  there  is  many  a  mile. 
And  it's  here  a  friend  and  there  a  friend 

To  bear  your  hand  a  while : 
But  none  will  go  to  the  journey's  end, 
And  few  will  stay  the  mile. 
[334] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

And  in  connection  with  the  problems  and  perplexities 
and  apparent  losses  that  come  and  that  must  be  met 
as  the  days  hurry  away,  I  believe  without  a  question 
of  a  doubt,  that  the  time  will  come  when  we  will  see  the 
part  that  each  thing  has  had  to  play  in  our  lives  and  we 
will  give  thanks  that  it  came  just  as  it  came.  I  believe, 
moreover,  that  a  sort  of  an  inborn  universal  feeling  of 
this  nature  is  a  reason  why  humanity  is  brave. 

A  hope  that  never  wearies,  a  faith  that  defies  defeat, 
an  attitude  of  mind  that  compels  gladness,  will  help  us  to 
stand  like  men  until  we  realize  this  glad  culmination.  And 
if  one  would  find  the  easier  way  it  lies  in  the  ever  conscious 
realization  — "  Thou  wilt  keep  him  in  perfect  peace 
whose  mind  is  stayed  on  thee." 

I  suppose  it  is  natural  for  each  to  find  or  to  form  for 
himself  some  sort  of  creed.  Here  is  mine  at  least  as  it 
comes  to  me  to-day;  perchance  it  may  contain  some 
little  suggestion  for  another: 

To  live  to  our  highest  in  all  things  that  pertain  to  us;  to 
lend  a  hand  as  best  we  can  to  all  others  for  this  same  end ; 

To  aid  in  righting  the  wrongs  that  cross  our  path  by 
pointing  the  wrong-doer  to  a  better  way,  and  thus  aid 
him  in  becoming  a  power  for  good ;  to  remain  in  nature 
always  sweet  and  simple  and  humble,  and  therefore 
strong; 

To  open  ourselves  fully  and  to  keep  ourselves  pure 
and  clean  as  fit  channels  for  the  Divine  Power  to  work 
through  us;  to  turn  toward  and  keep  our  faces  always 
to  the  light; 

To  do  our  own  thinking,  listening  quietly  to  the 
opinions  of  others,  and  to  be  sufficiently  men  and  wo- 

[335] 


In  the  Fire  of  the  Heart 

men  to  act  always  upon  our  own  convictions;  to  do 
our  duty  as  we  see  it,  regardless  of  the  opinions  of  others, 
seeming  gain  or  loss,  temporary  blame  or  praise; 

To  play  the  part  of  neither  knave  nor  fool  by  attempt- 
ing to  judge  another,  but  to  give  that  same  time  to 
living  more  worthily  ourselves;  to  get  up  immediately 
when  we  stumble,  face  again  to  the  light,  and  travel  on 
without  wasting  even  a  moment  in  regret; 

To  love  all  things  and  to  stand  in  awe  or  fear  of  noth- 
ing save  our  own  wrong-doing;  to  recognize  the  good 
lying  at  the  heart  of  all  people,  of  all  things,  waiting  for 
expression,  all  in  its  own  good  way  and  time; 

To  love  the  fields  and  the  wild  flowers,  the  stars,  the 
far-open  sea,  the  soft,  warm  earth,  and  to  live  much 
with  them  alone,  but  to  love  struggling  and  weary  men 
and  women  and  every  pulsing  living  creature  better; 

To  strive  always  to  do  unto  others  as  we  would  have 
them  do  unto  us. 

In  brief  —  to  be  honest,  to  be  fearless,  to  be  just,  to 
be  kind.  This  will  make  our  part  in  life's  great  and 
as  yet  not  fully  understood  play  truly  glorious,  and  we 
need  then  stand  in  fear  of  nothing  — life  nor  death;  for 
death  is  life. 

Or,  rather,  it  is  the  quick  transition  to  life  in  an- 
other form;  the  putting  off  of  the  old  coat  and  the 
putting  on  of  a  new;  a  passing  not  from  light  to  dark- 
ness but  from  light  to  light,  according  as  we  have  lived 
here;  a  taking  up  of  life  in  another  form  just  where  we 
leave  it  off  here;  a  part  in  life  not  to  be  shunned  or 
dreaded  or  feared,  but  to  be  welcomed  with  a  glad  and 
ready  smile  when  it  comes  in  its  own  good  way  and 
time. 


THE    END 


THE  McCLORE  PRESS,  NEW  YORK 


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